Auraria: A Novel (20 page)

The princess sprang forward from her perch, head and arms disappearing behind a crashing wave. With an arc-like motion, she was again on top her rocky island, now holding an enormous fish. She supported it under its mouth with one hand and beneath its tail with another—its ruby body extended a full four feet. The scales shimmered, set off by a cross-hatched pattern of dark lines and accented with gold; no other accent would be appropriate in Auraria. Its eyes were gold, its barb-like fins were gold, and its tail was shot through with golden lines.

“You remember the wild wonder fish, don’t you, Shadburn?” she said, barely more than a whisper. The waters quieted so the princess could be heard.

“I may have eaten one once,” said Shadburn.

“A wild wonder fish is not food. He’s not caught with a fishhook or a line run through his tongue. His outsides are armor, and on the inside, he is metal.”

Trahlyta stroked the head of the fish, and it opened its jaws, gasping. They were toothless, and the cheeks, as far as Holtzclaw could see, were fleshy and pink. She aimed the fish at Shadburn as though she were leveling a rifle. One of its side-facing eyes was fixated on Holtzclaw.

“Fish are so fragile,” she said. “Always so near death, and yet they are the most vengeful of creatures. Their spirits come to you in your dreams, Shadburn, because they can swim through the night as though it were river water, and they sit cold and clammy upon your mind.”

“You are threatening me with a fish?” said Shadburn. “What can they do, Princess? Will they gum my toes? Flop out of my dreams and soil my slippers? Of course you would threaten us with a fish, because you could not command anything more fearful. No waves of fire for you, no falling stars. You are a local spirit. Leave that fish alone. It’s already suffering, the poor thing.”

The wild wonder fish gave a shudder through its body and vainly flapped its tail. Trahlyta knelt on the muddy island, sheltered behind the rock, and lowered the fish back into the water. Holtzclaw couldn’t see the fish itself, just the disturbance made by its passing. It swam twice around the island, then against the current, up the hillside, and away.

The princess’s face brightened. With four light steps, she traveled the muddy flow from her island to the shore. “I don’t want anything more than fish and streams. It would be such a strain. I don’t care for booming pronouncements and vague threats, either, but my employers and subordinates sometimes expect it.”

“Well, it doesn’t impress me,” said Shadburn. “I do much more, and without the theatrics.”

“You’re all theatrics now, sir.”

“Are we finished here?” said Shadburn. “Will you let us pass?”

The flow of the current slackened, and the Carver Creek was soon passable.

“I forgot to tell you the most essential fact about the wild wonder fish,” said the princess.

“That it is delicious with browned butter?” said Shadburn.

“That his teeth, when he shows them, are spades.”

#

Twilight was already deep by the time the stagecoach arrived in Auraria. The narrow ribbon of purple sky overhead did little to light the streets, and the green foxfire and fireflies were more atmospheric than luminous.

In the grassy square at the center of town, a yellow tent had been erected, lit from within by lanterns. Holtzclaw spotted it before Shadburn, who was editing an advertising piece with a pencil, holding a candle so near the page that Holtzclaw was nervous of fire.

“Shadburn, what is that?” asked Holtzclaw, pointing out the window.

“What do you think about this?” he said, ignoring Holtzclaw. “‘A paradise for those lithe of limb and sound of lung.’ Too ornate?”

“It’s overwrought. Even for a club publication.”

“Yes, but I want it to sound fanciful.”

“We can work on it together later,” said Holtzclaw. “But in the meantime, there’s the matter of this yellow tent.”

Shadburn looked up. “It’s for a circus, an election, or a controversy. It’s not the season for the first two, which leaves only the controversy. And I believe that we—or rather, you—are the most likely topic.”

Holtzclaw seethed. All his haste had been for naught. “If I’d had another day,” he said, “I could have finished up the purchases or at least a good portion of the important lots. But you needed me in Dahlonega. Why, Shadburn? What did my presence accomplish?”

“I think that your firsthand experience was most impressive to the railroad men. And I would prefer to keep myself at a bit of a remove in this particular case.”

“They had their own firsthand experience. I meant to tell you. I saw them in the Old Rock Falls Inn.”

Shadburn’s face broke into a smile. “Then we have acted just in time. Had we not appeared to hire these men—put them on our schedule, at our command—then who knows what rival plans they might have formed? Now we only need to make sure we keep a rein on these gold seekers and not leave them loose to climb over our valley with their machinery. I have every confidence in you, Holtzclaw.”

So it was genius, thought Holtzclaw—a strange, expensive genius.

The stagecoach stopped just outside the meeting tent, which was crammed with townsfolk and hummed with indistinct speech. The tent reminded Holtzclaw of a wasp’s nest, and he was not eager to approach it any closer.

“And how do you think we should proceed?” said Holtzclaw.

“I think that you’d best go explain yourself,” said Shadburn.

“Must I do it? How much? The lake, the hotel, the new town?”

“Might as well. It will all come out in the wash.”

“We’ll never have that property at the Terrible Cascade now, and everyone else will triple their prices. I shouldn’t wonder that yesterday’s customers will want to tear me to pieces unless I pay them off.”

Shadburn shrugged. “Don’t let it concern you.”

“The prices will be ruinous to you!” said Holtzclaw. “Don’t you care for profits?”

“Of course I do, but not for the moment. Tell them you are here to help them help themselves. They will listen and they will believe.”

“I don’t think …”

“Stop thinking, Holtzclaw, and start talking! Get out there!”

Holtzclaw tumbled from the stagecoach, compelled by Shadburn’s insistent tone as if by his boot. In his haste, he had forgotten his hat. It was still inside the stagecoach, on the seat. Shadburn had turned away from the window and was much surprised when the door opened again.

“Holtzclaw, I asked you …”

“I needed my hat.” Holtzclaw placed it upon his head and shut Shadburn inside.

Holtzclaw wedged himself into edge of the crowd. Because of his local hat, the distracted townsfolk did not immediately mark him as an outsider.

In the center of the tent a wooden platform had been built. Holtzclaw was gratified to see that it was not a gallows, just a dais for a central speaker. The dais was occupied by three people—the garrulous druggist Emmett, Abigail Thompson, and an older man that Holtzclaw did not recognize.

“So you haven’t seen him since you took him up to Dahlonega?” the older man asked Abigail with a precise voice that cut through the muttering din of the crowd.

“Not since I left him at the Tanner building just off the square, Dr. Rathbun,” said Abigail. “He said they were offices that he’d rented. He seemed pleasant enough to me.”

“Did he ask questions?” said Dr. Rathbun.

“Not too many,” said Abigail.

“Emmett, you saw him twice at least,” said Dr. Rathbun.

“He came in the store, and then I saw him at the Grayson House. Sold him Effervescent Brain Salts and a box of Pharaoh’s Flour. He wasn’t looking for anything strange. Fellow said he had a powerful headache, but he looked like he was feeling better by the time he showed up at the Grayson House. He had a bit of a long talk with your daughter there, Dr. Rathbun.”

“Did he? She didn’t confess that,” said Dr. Rathbun. “Untoward advances?”

“Just saw them talking at the foot of the stairs,” said Emmett. “You know how loud it is in there. Couldn’t hear a word two feet away.”

“Ms. Thompson? Did the stranger make any untoward advances to you?”

Abigail shook her head.

“Did he tell either of you what he wanted?” said Dr. Rathbun.

“There was some bull story about scrap metal!” shouted someone from off the dais.

“Yes, I heard that’s what he told Bogan,” said someone else.

“There’s no mine on the Moss farm,” chimed a fat man. “Moss doesn’t have so much as a tin cup for scrap metal.”

“I had a gold nugget!” said Moss, shouting from across the crowd. “That is worth a lot more than a tin cup or any scrap metal, which is all you’ll ever see.”

“You had a gold nugget, but you gambled it all away in one night!” said a raspy-voiced woman.

“That’s my business!” answered Moss.

“You are all going to simmer down,” said Dr. Rathbun. “We don’t run an inquest by shouting. Raise your hand, and you’ll be asked up here to have your say.”

Holtzclaw raised his hand. Recognition spread out from him like a ripple across the surface of a lake; concentric rings of heads turned toward him.

“That’s him! The one that bought up my land!” This voice was unfamiliar, young and wavering.

“That fellow?” said the fat man. “Wasn’t he supposed to have a shock of red hair and a beard?”

“Be six feet tall with a limp?” said someone else.

“Mary said it was two men, twins, with clean black suits,” said a trim woman who looked like a schoolmistress.

The crowd shrank back from Holtzclaw. He climbed the two steps, and his shoulder was caught by Abigail. She whispered into his ear, but there was too little voice behind her whisper and too much noise from the crowd. “I’m sorry,” he mouthed, hoping that she would understand. She sizzled as she strode away.

“Let’s all calm down,” said Dr. Rathbun. “We want to hear what this fellow has to say, don’t we? Go ahead, Mr. Handclaw.”

“It’s Holtzclaw,” he said.

“The consensus was Handclaw,” said Dr. Rathbun.

“I said Holdcow!”

“Wholecloth!”

“No, it’s Holtzclaw,” said Holtzclaw again.

“Abigail was right then,” said Dr. Rathbun. “Go ahead, Mr. Holtzclaw. Settle them down and say your piece.”

Holtzclaw tried a number of rhetorical gestures to capture the attention of the crowd. He cleared his throat and begged their pardon. He held up his arms in an expansive Y shape, as he had seen politicians do at the culmination of their arguments. Even the Asheville Attitude was ineffective, though it had no real hopes of success in this environment, one against many. In desperation, Holtzclaw stomped his boot against the wooden plank of the dais. The footfalls rang out like shots, echoed by the hollow space below, but these explosions did not disrupt the crowd.

“Just start talking,” said Dr. Rathbun. “And those that want will listen.”

Holtzclaw sketched in broad strokes, which was as much as he understood it, the plans for the future of the Lost Creek Valley. “We have planned a great transformation for your valley. Your buildings are crumbling in the weather, your fields are frozen, your mines empty. And your response was to bury your noses in the earth, looking for flakes of gold. Soon, that will be scrubbed away. The Standard Company is buying the valley. We mean to own all of it, from the river to the mountaintops. At one end, we’ll put a dam, and the river will become a beautiful lake. On its shores will be a grand hotel, populated by the best people in all seasons, with splendid cuisine and gala dancing. The railroad will arrive from Dahlonega, bringing passengers and mail and such exquisite things for sale—things from the city and from across the sea. The railroad will carry back the results of your industry and reward you with money to buy these luxuries. It’s the beginning of a new age of prosperity. Honest, good-paying work will be available at the hotel, in the gardens, at the depot, and at sawmills and tanneries. Any who lose their livelihoods will gain better ones.”

He paused for gasps or applause, but the angry noise of the crowd persisted.

“He talks like a book, and lies like one too! A fairy-tale book!” yelled someone close to Holtzclaw’s ear.

“The whole matter will be clearer in the morning,” said Holtzclaw. “I can bring you some charts. On a map, you will see how it is all to work. We are here to help you.”

“Who is ‘we’? This Standard Company?” said the schoolmistress.

“Who do you work for?” said the fat man.

“My employer came with me tonight,” said Holtzclaw. “This is his plan. His name is H. E. Shadburn, of Milledgeville.”

“No, of Auraria. Here I am, as summoned.”

Heads turned as the name was invoked. Shadburn stood above them all. He had put on new cufflinks of bright silver. His shoes were polished again. When he doffed his cap and held it to his chest, his baldness was proud and shining in the lantern light. Here was a marvel better than any spirit in Auraria; the people were astonished in a way that no ghost could work upon them. A whisper of a name rippled through the assembly, and then a hush fell.

All the assembled crowd looked up to him, the rich man. But not only rich. Familiar.