Auraria: A Novel (33 page)

Holtzclaw ducked the outstretched hand. “We should have launched months ago. We would have, if I hadn’t been so dedicated to my role here. I’ve had to leave most of the work to Ms. Rathbun.”

“I would be happy to assist you, Holtzclaw. Unfinished, that boat is an eyesore on my lake.”

“Unfinished or finished, the boat is mine,” said Holtzclaw.

Chapter Twenty-One

A bush of wild love-apples grew on the promontory where Holtzclaw and Ms. Rathbun had built their dock. The wild love-apple, cousin to the humble tomato, is poisonous, a descendant of nightshade. Two perfect red globes hung near the top of the love-apple plant. Holtzclaw picked them both and placed them in his traveling satchel.

The Maiden of the Lake was tied up by sturdy ropes, as thick around as Holtzclaw’s arm. It was more than was needed, he knew, but boats are expensive and ropes are cheap.

From end to end, the boat was one hundred and forty feet long and thirty feet wide. Despite the size, it was light and had a shallow draft. Once the steam boilers were installed, it could carry its guests up even the shallowest arms of Lake Trahlyta.

The hull was painted a cheerful white, set off with a red ribbon that ran from bow to stern like a pinstripe. Large green lights burned fore and aft; between them were smaller points of starlight for decoration. The drivewheel at the rear was red and black and gold, with fine ironwork on the frame.

The bottom deck was for the crew. There would be pleasant, if small, rooms for the cook, the captain, the helmsman, as well as a common area for the stevedores and servants to sling their hammocks and take their meals. Executive staff—Holtzclaw, Ms. Rathbun—had rooms on the main two decks, along with the other guest cabins. Perched atop the highest story was a wheelhouse, capped with a weathervane.

From a distance, the only flaw in the Maiden of the Lake’s appearance was the second funnel. One funnel was finished, capped with a decorative finial that was meant to evoke a flower, but its twin was stunted, a half-formed stem that grew from an empty engine room.

He climbed up the gangplank. Everywhere, there were costly mistakes. Since he’d last been aboard, the deck planking had been installed, but the surface had not yet been stained. Rains—of water and of peaches—had begun to eat at the boards. They were popping and swelling at the joints and would have to be replaced if the best people were to be welcomed aboard.

Entering the main gallery, Holtzclaw saw the balconies that faced into the open interior. The shells of twenty guest cabins, a dining room, and a reading parlor on the prow wrapped the three sides of a common area, which was meant for dancing, cards, and social activities. A wall of glass at the stern looked over the drivewheel. The ceiling of the common area too was made from glass—or it would be, after the final installation. For now, a taut canvas served as the roof.

The upper balconies lacked their railings; they ended at unguarded drops to the floor below. Throughout the lower floor, carpet had been laid, but it was a cheap weave. The wood trim was a facade, an inferior amalgam of sawdust and glue.

Holtzclaw ascended the grand staircase, which connected the two stories of the common area. The stairs were finely made, an organic curve, but unfinished. Lighted golden figures he’d ordered for the banister had not been installed. At the head of the stairs were double doors to the grand suite. These were the only worthy pieces that Holtzclaw had yet seen—slabs of shiny curly maple, inset with frosted windows of yellow glass. The doors stood ajar. Holtzclaw passed through the bare vestibule, through the bare receiving room, and knocked at the door to the bedchamber, which was framed in candle glow.

Ms. Rathbun wore a red silk dressing gown that formed an uninterrupted field of carmine from her throat to the floor. Her hair was pulled back, twirled around a chopstick. Her eyes swept him up and down. Then understanding passed across her face, but she did not smile.

“Oh hello there,” said Ms. Rathbun. “Having a look around?”

“I came to see you,” said Holtzclaw.

“Of course. How pleasant.”

Holtzclaw cast an intentional look over his shoulder, back through the unfinished vestibule and toward the lobby. “Things don’t look any further along than a week ago.”

“Did you come to see me or to have a look around?”

Holtzclaw flushed. Ms. Rathbun stepped aside, admitting him to her chamber. A shadow passed across her pale face—the door was shut.

The bedroom was furnished with familiar objects retrieved from the Grayson House. Her four-poster bed, piled high with blankets. Her dressing table and mirror. A wardrobe that barely fit below the ten-foot ceiling. Two wide bowls on a table.

Holtzclaw placed one of the love-apples in each of the bowls. “They make a nice decoration there.”

“Tomatoes?” said Ms. Rathbun.

“They are love-apples, from beside the dock. Please don’t cook them up thinking they’re tomatoes!”

Ms. Rathbun sat down opposite him to study the love-apples on the table.

“What are you trying to say with such a gift, Holtzclaw? They’re not practical, nor are they costly. You didn’t go through much trouble to get them—you practically had to climb over them to get here.”

Holtzclaw fidgeted; he had no good reply. “This room looks comfortable,” he said, to change the subject.

“By that, you mean that it doesn’t look grand?” said Ms. Rathbun.

“It is the grand suite. Hadn’t we ordered furniture? And artwork? There was a large format piece. Pastoral, a landscape.”

“It hasn’t been delivered.”

“We paid for it months ago,” said Holtzclaw. “Have we been swindled?”

Ms. Rathbun shook her head. “No, I cannot be swindled. I tore the federal notes in half. The eagle sides went with the order; the seal sides will be delivered on receipt. When the painting arrives, then the artist can glue the notes back together. Until then, they’re in the strongbox.”

“Here?” said Holtzclaw. “On the boat? There are safer places. The vault at the Queen of the Mountains, for instance.”

“Shadburn’s vault must be the least secure place that a dollar bill or piece of gold could ever land. It will be spent in two moments.”

“For a good cause. To keep the dam whole. To make the hotel profitable, faster. If we don’t spend, then we are all doomed.”

“Do you think that, even if you charged twenty dollars a night and another twenty for board—or two hundred—you would ever reap more than what’s been sown into this valley?”

“I must believe it,” said Holtzclaw. “Otherwise, it would only be prudent to stop now. Close the hotel. Break open the dam and let the waters out. Save what money is left for recovery. Poor Abigail could have some to rebuild the Old Rock Falls. But Shadburn would never let that happen. He is dedicated to the lake, above all else. He would let every penny go first.”

“Is that sound business?” said Ms. Rathbun.

Holtzclaw shook his head in the negative. “No, not at all. The most profitable business would be gold mining, but of course that is impossible now.”

“Maybe that’s what we should be doing,” said Ms. Rathbun. “Hang all this ship work. I’ve read that the French have created a diving bell with powerful bellows.”

“Then what would we do with our half of a floating hotel?” said Holtzclaw.

“Let it sink,” said Ms. Rathbun, “or let it drift into the dam and have the slow current grind it to splinters. Not put more gold into it. Why take mountains of money and wear it down into pebbles? And speaking of wearing down our mountains of money, no doubt you’ve noticed the flooring on the deck? Workers are coming in three days to repair it. They’ll need their pay when they arrive.”

Holtzclaw brought out a sheaf of federal notes from his satchel. He’d had the underground gold changed into paper money through visiting bankers and merchants. “This is for the insurance policies too.”

“They are paid already. I paid them first.” Ms. Rathbun reached for some golden-colored speck on the floor, near her foot. Her red silk dressing gown conformed to the series of sharp lines and piercing angles of her body—leg, calf, back, shoulder, arm, neck.

“Did you know,” said Holtzclaw, “that I was a silk entrepreneur once?” He gestured toward Lizzie’s sleeve, but did not quite touch it.

“Really,” said Ms. Rathbun, regarding the speck between her fingers. “Oh Holtzclaw, you do go on.”

#

The Queen of the Mountains encouraged its guests to take constitutionals and perambulations after meals. Many visitors confined themselves to the loop of linked verandas that girdled the hotel. But for guests that wanted a longer ramble, the Queen of the Mountains provided many groomed trails.

The most popular path wandered through a shady bower and then followed a trickling creek for a mile, inclining slightly. The creek tumbled over a cliff, and the path looped behind the falls before continuing up a short run of stairs. Some people stopped here, judging the waterfall pretty enough. Those who climbed the stairs followed the path for a quarter mile until it ended at a spring flanked by two structures. The first was a pavilion under which guests could obtain mineral water, mixed drinks, and salted snacks. The second was a cairn of white stones.

Holtzclaw liked to take the walk twice per day, once upon rising and once after dinner, to aid with digestion, but after returning from the Maiden of the Lake, he had missed two constitutionals in a row because of a sudden crisis. A muddy rain of stones had fallen down the back of the dam, and Holtzclaw had to supervise a crew to shore up the earthworks. Because they were working forty feet above the ground, harnessed and tethered, they demanded hazard pay. Holtzclaw wished he could plumb the innards of the dam, but exploratory diggings would only exacerbate the decline.

Without his constitutionals, his creativity and digestion were suffering. And the good functioning of both was essential, if he was to lead the hotel to a rapid success. On this occasion, he made a point of a leisurely late afternoon stroll, to see if some great advertising campaign would spring from the land.

Princess Trahlyta, in hotel livery, sat at the spring, running a toe through the water. She was about to begin a story, and a crowd of children pressed near her. Holtzclaw did not know why she took the time to tell tales for the tourists. Perhaps she felt compelled by a sense of rural hospitality. After all, her name was enfolded with the advertising materials. Perhaps, with so many of her springs and rivers plugged up, she was bored.

Holtzclaw only half listened to her, since the essence of the tale never changed. She recounted how this spring had once been the home of a beautiful maiden, the Queen of the Mountains, after whom the hotel took its name. The maiden bathed herself daily in the waters of the spring, and they keep her eternally young, eternally fresh, eternally happy. She saw many ages of the world from within the waters of her spring. Mountains grew from pebbles to mighty peaks to pebbles again. The mighty creatures that once lumbered across the land shrank into the tiny animals we know today. The Queen of the Mountains watched as the cold turned the water, drop by drop, into a sheet of ice, and then watched as the sun undid that work with ease.

Then a warrior and his party came over the mountains. They were surprised by their enemies, and the warrior was mortally wounded. His comrades left him beside a river to die, as was their custom. Blood rose from his wounds like a fine red thread, twisted into knots by the current. His blood sacrifice opened the bowery to the queen’s spring, which had been hidden from the eyes of birds and fish and men and mountains. The spring waters knitted his flesh back together. The flowing stream laved away bruises and straightened broken bones. It smoothed the wear and worry from his face and plucked the gray hairs from his head.

The warrior lifted his head and saw the beautiful young maiden. She swam through the shimmering waves, her long slender arms parting the water. He believed that she had healed him out of love. But the Queen of the Mountains did not love any man or woman. They were like pebbles to her, like mountains, like fish or birds. The Queen of the Mountains loved water, which was eternal, and loved rivers, which flowed forever. She had not healed the warrior. This was the power of the spring and its minerals.

But the warrior wanted to take the maiden back to his people to be his bride. He bound her hands and feet, because she frothed and crashed like an angry rain. He took her up on his back and carried her away from the spring.

They traveled for an hour, and the maiden wept. They traveled for a day, and she stopped weeping. When the warrior set her down, he saw that her face was lined with wrinkles. He thought it was from weeping. They traveled for another day. The maiden grew thin and frail. Her hair was streaked with gray; white moss grew on her hands and feet. On the third day, her breathing was raspy and shallow, a hollow whisper of age and death, and the warrior found that he was carrying an old woman. The Queen of the Mountains had aged with every mile she had traveled away from her spring and her valley.

The warrior turned back. He could not take an aged, dying woman home to be his bride. He came back into the valley while the Queen of the Mountains still breathed, but he could not find the spring. The bowers had closed again. He pleaded with the maiden to open the way so that she could be restored, but she did not hear him or she refused to obey.