The Siren's Tale (13 page)

It was dark, but my horse easily picked its way over the trail along Ha
tter’s Field toward the west end of town, where the Brighton spread began. The Thanksgiving players were to meet at the silo outside the Grange barn. Sounds of merriment—fiddle music, loud voices, and the shuffle and stomp of dancing feet—could be heard over nature’s chorus of whistling winds and animal grunts. 

I arrived at
the Grange with great anticipation; also a feeling of being pulled along by fateful, unknown forces. When I reached where the players were congregated, I held my breath. Would they guess who I was under the disguise? I dismounted, and no one greeted me. So far, so good.

Glancing sharply
into all their faces, I had to suppress my amusement. I saw that the cast, with the single exception of Mayor Hawker, was paralyzed with fear, too far gone with stage fright to perceive anything else. Hawker, who wore a dusty, lopsided three-corner hat and a greasy satin waistcoat, was tuning up his vocal chords by exhorting the actors to keep quiet.

Hawker threw a portentous look my way, as Sacajawea's role
was to lead them all in, by virtue of her reputation as a guide. He looked away, but then his head swerved back to me again, overtly surveying my figure. However, my eyes were downcast and my features sullen as any Indian maid’s would be in these surroundings, so eventually he lost interest in me and returned to bullying the cast.

“
Stop that noise! You must wait until the Widow gives the signal, at which time the dancing will end and we will enter.”

Jason Harris
on was the last to arrive, and obviously uncomfortable in his Indian headdress and leather breeches. He would have to make a quick change into Myles Standish. Hawker told him to look for a curtained area behind the stage, fashioned for the musicians to take their breaks; he could change there. I decided that hiding spot would suit me as well, later in the evening. 

At precisely half past eight o’clock, Widow Brighton stopped the dance with a fluttering wave of her handkerchief in the direction of the bandmaster.
Led by me, the cast traipsed in, but I was unable to spot anyone who might be her son. Now I found myself on the plain boards of the stage. The glare of a huge wooden candelabra was in my eyes, and I was hemmed in by the other players. I thought of the trouble I had gone to, just to catch sight of my white knight. I pressed the birthmark on my breastbone and willed someone to point him out to me.

“
Is that Nicholas Brighton standing over there by the harpsichord?” said Harrison to Fairwell. “It has been so long I would not recognize him.”

“
So it is,” affirmed Fairwell. “He is wearing a blue vest and a white neckerchief. The Widder is seated on the bale of hay right next to him.”

I took in
his face at a glance, every dimple and crevice in his finely made features, and every wisp of his sandy-blond hair. His chin was a bit weak, but that was the only flaw I could detect in his aspect. The aura radiating from his hazel eyes was childlike, but I chose to put that impression aside.

Hawker said,
“Our local boys and an Indian girl from the reservation will play the parts of the Lakotas and of the famous Sacajawea.”    

That was my cue. I took my bow and
retreated to the back of the stage.

Mayor Hawker introduced each player
and his role in the pageant. The audience cheered as each man stood forth with hands grasped behind or in front. 

The pageant droned on, each of the players doing a lot of hemming and hawing when it came his turn to stand before the fake campfire, which was composed o
f logs and orange streamers.

I could see Nicholas
Brighton clearly from where I was standing. With a tiny piece of my siren vision, I followed every turn of his head, every movement of his long, fine fingers, every smile that flitted across his fine features. He was dressed in a style that befitted a sophisticated city gentleman. Meantime I stared ahead with a deadpan expression, as any Indian would be expected to do. No one took any notice of me.

The last speaker was Jason
Harrison, somewhat comic in his colonial getup, but nonetheless coming across as gallant when he stood forth stoutly and read from the last page of the script a published account of the first Thanksgiving. The fact that the prose came not from Myles Standish, but rather from Edward Winslow, writing in
Mourt’s Relation,
was entirely lost on the rubes in the audience.  

“
Our harvest being gotten in
,
our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together, after we had gathered the fruits of our labors; they four in one day killed as much fowl, as with a little help beside, served the Company almost a week…”

I noticed our host looked
intensely interested as Harrison flexed his muscles and finished the long piece with an upward flourish of his hand. I recalled that they were once schoolmates. “…And although it be not always so plentiful, as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want, that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.”

Mayor Hawker then offered heartfelt thanks on behalf of the assemblage to God for His bounty
, and to the Widow for her lavish hospitality and her “allowance of the spirits from the past to be conjured up, so the olden days would not be forgot.”

Though pressed to come forward, the Widow declined, as was apparently traditional, and waved her handkerchief as a signal for the dancing to commence again. With Mayor Hawker front and center, the players
elaborately took their bows and then traipsed from the stage, with me again in the lead. In the bedlam that ensued as the players left the stage and the dancers crowded back onto the floor, I moved quickly to the curtained corner behind the stage, biding my time. As I stood listening to the music and tapping my foot, I willed our host to find me. 

A
lilting male voice behind me said, “Beautiful evening, is it not?”   

Nicholas Brighton
entered the alcove, with a glove dangling from one hand. As the masquerade would end with my voice, I did not speak. I inclined my head and kept my eyes down. I heard a chuckle, then he spoke again in a soft voice and with a slight lisp. “I would like to ask you a question which may sound strange. Are you a white woman?”

Very g
ently he reached out his hand. Our eyes were still not engaged. I stood perfectly still as his fingertip grazed a tendril of my own hair that had escaped from the wig. I cast my eyes down. The heat I felt in response was flushing my neck where he had brushed it, but I bit my lip and spoke not a word.

“
Sacajawea,” he said, “your travels are legendary. What has brought you to our humble corner of the world? I can see you are no Indian maid. Who are you?”  

Wordlessly I focused my eyes on his. He first appeared to be startled, but then he gazed back and ultimately was
mesmerized into silence. The current between us was buzzing as loudly as the song of the cicada, deafening our ears to other sounds. Light particles seemed actually to leap and fuse into a single moving stream between us. The nature of the connection seemed to me a dance, as stately as a minuet.

In contrast, I couldn't help but think, the buzzing connection between me and Drake was
a heated and frenetic continuum, like savages leaping around a fire.

Finally I spoke.
“I am a white woman, as you say, and a stranger here.”

His eyes
refocused, then lingered on me with a lively curiosity.

“
Do girls like to play-act now? They never used to. My cousin never did.” I decided his slight lisp was quite charming.

“
I cannot speak for other girls, only for myself.”

“
Why do you do it?”

“
To fend off depression.”

My
modern word seemed to catch his attention. 

“
I have friends in San Francisco who are doctors of medicine in a new field. They are investigating the inner workings of the brain. Alienists, they are called, presumably because they deal in the more foreign aspects of the mind. So what is it that has depressed you?”

“
My life.”

“
I would gladly have asked you to our party, if getting out lifts your mood.”

There was a
long pause between us. 

“
Did I know you in my childhood?” he asked.

“
Never. As I said, I am a stranger here.”

“
Won’t you stay awhile and talk longer?  The bonfires will be set any moment now.”

“
No, thank you. I must go.  They will light my way home.”

He was looking at me with mildly curious eyes.

I lowered my
eyes and said, “Truly, I must go.”

It is interesting to note that, during the first meeting of the returned native and the siren, both wore disguises. For Nicholas appeared to be what he was not, a city gentleman of sophisticated tastes and social ambition.

Long afterward, they both remembered
the buzzing current felt between them. Each felt it had been of a particular nature. While for Cassandra the stream of connective particles was a dance of passion that would also lead her to a more sophisticated life elsewhere, to Nicholas the moment was one of vocational insight, one which would keep him right where he was. Thus began a love affair, entirely willed into existence by  Cassandra, one that was destined to end in tragic entanglement. 

After Cassandra left the Thanksgiving party, Nicholas went out walking. He
stared for a long time into the flames of a small bonfire that was near his home. It leapt and died, leapt and died, leapt and died.

L
ooking into the flames which were so like the strange girl's magnetism, he had an idea, an epiphany that would be forever linked in his mind with her gleaming topaz eyes.  Ironically, it was as though he had been struck by a message from on high, rather than transfixed by a siren's mesmerizing stare. The net result was the young man's resolve not to return to his employment in San Francisco. He would stay in Alta and dedicate himself to educating those who needed him most. That night, he dreamed of buffaloes thundering through a mountain pass.

There was a backdrop for his idea.
While he was at William & Mary College in Virginia, Rousseau and John Muir had got into the young man’s soul, along with substantial doses of Plato and John Locke. After acquiring a license in the gold assaying field that some viewed as a license to steal, Nicholas kept on exercising his social conscience, which urged him to give back more than he received.

Next day, I remained dissatisfied with my situation. The prospects for a lasting passion with either of these humans seemed dim. In the early morning, wrapped in a shawl against the growing bitterness in the air, I sat tapping my foot in the chilly stone kitchen. 

I was alone, Grandfather having
taken to joining the men who congregated at Bottomly’s each morning at the stammtisch table, though what he found in that rustic confederation of dunces to be so compelling, I could not imagine. 

I was confident my white knight
had found me compelling, even in a buckskin dress and brown paint. But how compelling? There was something in the graceful mien of Nicholas Brighton that made me itch to have more power over him, while at the same time I found him somewhat lacking in manliness, especially in comparison with Curly. For instance, his cock had not risen to salute me, the way Curly's always did the minute he spotted me.  

I was
also out of temper because of a galling recollection.

While calling on me to settle our accounts the week before, our new ice man had
said Miss Brighton admired me and wished to befriend me. Mr. Caleb Scattergood then boldly solicited my intervention in the situation, suggesting I use my influence with Mr. Drake to speed up their marriage. Naturally, I bridled at his presumption and sent him packing. Now, I regretted having been so quick to reject his idea.

Indeed, I could see championing
Miss Brighton would give a boost to my chances with Nicholas, particularly if she stood up for me to the Widow Brighton. Grandfather had reported that the Widow hated all newcomers, and cherished a hope that Nicholas and Clare would marry. A horrible thought occurred. What if Clare tired of Drake's shenanigans and decided she would marry her cousin Nicholas, to please her guardian? 

I must make sure poor Curly
was returned to his fiancée, and quickly. I penned my lover a firm note of dismissal, putting it into a small parcel along with a few personal items he had given me. But to whom should I entrust its delivery? I was roused from this thought by a knock on the parlor door.

“
Come in,” I said, hiding under my shawl the parcel with Drake's name written on the outside. Horatio's rounded head and blue eyes appeared in the doorway.

“
Miss,” he said, “I have brought you some water. Will you play for me as you promised?”

“
What are you talking about, my little man?” I said, taking the water.

“
I was sure you forgot, Miss, begging your pardon, as it was weeks ago. ‘You little devil, I’ll play for as long as you want.’ Them was your very words on the First Fire Night after we built the bonfire and after the frog jumped in the pond, and before the man come to visit you, and before I skinned my knee and got lost.”

“
I'm sorry to hear of your injury, Horatio. How did you get home?”

“
A man who looked black as the devil took me in. He was out on Hatter's Field in his wagon.”

Horatio's confused
tale brought Mr. Scattergood back to my mind again. I decided it was serendipity, a sign I should make him the conduit for my dismissal. Everyone said the former coal miner was hopelessly in love with Clare Brighton and had started up an ice business only to be near her. If I confided in him, Mr. Scattergood would deliver my package to Drake and, no doubt, ingratiate me with Miss Brighton when he had the chance.

“
You may join me in the parlor, boy. You have earned your reward by giving me an idea.”

“
Yes, ma’am!”

After playing a few ditties on my instrument, I bid the glazed-eye lad to
listen to me carefully.  

“
I have another mission for you today, my little knight, and then there will be more music for you tomorrow. You are to find the man you were just speaking of and promptly bring him here to me. If Mr. Scattergood is in town, you will find him at the herder's shed at the far end of the Brighton property. If he is not there, leave him a note to call upon me as soon as he returns. Go there now, quickly, please.”

“
Yes, ma'am!”

As g
ood fortune would have it, Scattergood was in town.

When the ice man
was standing before me, I made it perfectly clear where I now stood on the issue of Clare Brighton's engagement to Curly Drake. In turn he expressed a great eagerness to extend any service possible to me, all in the strictest of confidence.

I thought he had a most unusual human face, one that inspired complete trust and confidence. I handed him the parcel without another word, and he, having understood me perfectly, was on his way with alacrity.

My sleep remained troubled. For, despite the drastic change I had set in motion, a quick bound from one man to another, I continued to have the same terrifying dream. Over and over, I saw Drake lying at my feet, stone dead. The dream's persistence only strengthened my resolve to continue with his dismissal. However, as dictated by my siren nature, I could hardly bear the pain of releasing one victim without entangling another in my net. Despite some misgivings about Nicholas, I began to think up enjoyable ways to lure and fascinate him.