Auraria: A Novel (43 page)

The reaction to all these events among the guests was unbridled enthusiasm. As portents for the upcoming gala, they were hugely effective. The artifice was first-rate; the tricks were so convincing that they seemed supernatural. Holtzclaw received much unmerited acclaim. Whenever peaches tumbled from the sky to explode in a shower of juice or whenever a rumbling from a fissure sounded like a snoring beast stirring in its sleep, the guests quivered with anticipation. They debated costumes, tried new hairstyles, and made engagements. They spent an extra hour in the baths to fortify their constitutions for anticipated debauchery and social graces, for twenty dances in a row, for marriages and matches. To Holtzclaw, this was a great encouragement. He felt that his preparations were on the right track, and the guests were accepting them in the proper spirit.

Word spread of the fantastic artifice, and booking increased. The Queen of the Mountains was fully engaged for the week of the gala, every room occupied. Their gala would welcome the largest possible crowd. All railroad cars into the valley were heaped to capacity with people and things; Johnston and Carter could not have failed to see the profit in such an event.

Holtzclaw was supervising the installation of new shelves in the cold areas of kitchen, which were needed to store up a quantity of ice cream chicks for the gala. A sleepy Shadburn found him there.

“It’s a perfect chaos, Holtzclaw,” said Shadburn, scratching his head under his hat. “This loudness and nonsense. Is this for the gala?”

“I’ve thrown the doors open. Invitations have been sent to every evolute ghost with a mailing address.”

“Well, if that’s what you think best. It’s just so exhausting.” Shadburn sighed. “As long as there’s a lake, then I’ve done my part. I’m not needed here.”

Holtzclaw did not say anything; he did not disagree with Shadburn.

“You and Ms. Thompson have everything well in hand,” continued Shadburn. “I had thought that I would try something else, another project.”

“Perhaps, in a few seasons, you’d have the capital to start something, if all goes well at the gala.”

“A few seasons! That’s such a long time away. Too many wearisome banquets between now and then. Maybe I will borrow something from the vault right now.”

“You won’t find a crumb, Shadburn. All of the money has been sown back into the earth, in anticipation of a great harvest. It has either gone into the dam or into the gala.”

“Oh,” said Shadburn. He rubbed his cheeks with the heels of his hands, working away drowsiness. “Well, that’s very good, very good. I suppose that it wouldn’t do it go fetch any more gold from down below either. Couldn’t do it anyway—there’s a lake in the way. But perhaps I could collect a few dollars and make a start with some of these ice cream chicks. Where do they come from?”

“They hatch from snowballs that Mother Fresh-Roasted’s frozen hens lay,” said Holtzclaw.

“Would she sell a few of these, do you think? A franchise opportunity? What do you think the return on that would be, Holtzclaw, if we were to take it out to, say, Charleston or Augusta? Or Milledgeville? Wouldn’t the people there think it just the top of fashion?”

“I wouldn’t know,” said Holtzclaw. “The hens probably wouldn’t be happy out of the valley.”

His employer nodded. “Well, I’ll think it over.” Shadburn picked up two ice cream chicks—one chocolate, one strawberry. He cupped them in his hands and began to leave the cold storage room but then turned back.

“Just to be sure—you didn’t invite those foreign women to the gala, did you? The moon maidens?”

“They didn’t invite us to their valley,” said Holtzclaw.

#

On the eve of the gala, green lights drew the hotel guests and staff onto the lawn, around the kitchen. These will-o’-the-wisps orbited the building latitudinally at irregular speeds and intervals. A bright flash from one of the orbiting green spots illuminated the awed faces.

“It’s going to be quite the party, isn’t it, Mr. Holtzclaw?” said one of the guests, elbowing Holtzclaw in the ribs chummily.

Holtzclaw excused himself to look for Abigail. She was organizing a brigade of employees near one of the springhouses.

“What is this, Ms. Thompson?”

“I think you know, Holtzclaw,” she said.

“It could be an electrical discharge. A short in the refrigeration system or the flood lights.”

“But it isn’t,” said Abigail. Holtzclaw nodded his head.

The green lights pulsed faster, and their brown cousins dimmed. The orbits grew larger, and Holtzclaw shuddered to see green lights spreading down the elevated corridor that connected the kitchen to the main structure of the hotel.

“If there is a fire, we will have to destroy the passageway,” said Holtzclaw. “We can’t let the flames spread to the hotel, not on the night before the gala. Should we get the explosives?”

Following the best building practices, the kitchen was set a little distance away from the main hotel, but it was connected to the whole by a two-story covered walkway to provide the wait staff with an enclosed passage by which to deliver hot food to the dining room. The walkway was supported on just three arches, and at each of their keystones, there were panels to which small explosive charges could be set. In case a fire should break out in the kitchen and threaten to run out of control, the linking passageway could be destroyed quickly and cleanly, and the fire would never spread to the dining room or ballroom or guest quarters. It was the height of prudence to have enough dynamite on hand at all times.

A mournful keening began to rise from the mountainside, building in pitch and volume. The air smelled like smoke; children sniffled. A few fat raindrops fell and then, as if the sky changed her mind, a hot wind blew instead. All at once, the will-o’-the-wisps popped, like bubbles, and in their place, a low purple fire clung to the kitchen building. It roved in ectoplasmic tongues over the wood and brick and stone.

“That’s the final sign,” said Holtzclaw. “We need to blow up the passage. Cut off the kitchen for loss and save the rest of the hotel.”

Holtzclaw ran to the storeroom, unlocked the cherrywood box that contained the dynamite, and placed several charges into the hands of trained employees. The team approached the kitchen passage, but Abigail held up her hand to stop them.

“What, you want to try to put it out?” said Holtzclaw. “There’s no time.”

Abigail walked to the kitchen building, now consumed in purple flame, and up the front steps. “Toasty but not too hot,” she said. “Just right for a cookout.”

She led a few employees into the kitchen and brought out fixings for an impromptu roast. Children cooked sausages on the end of green twigs. The purple fire seemed content to crisp the edges of the treats. Holtzclaw kept an eye on the passage, to see if the flame would spread, but the flame obediently stayed confined to the kitchen building.

“It’s a whale of trick,” said one of the guests, again throwing an elbow toward Holtzclaw.

“No trick,” he said. His hands were still clammy from the gravity of the decision he’d made, even if it had not needed to be carried out.

“I’ve pulled the same stunt at my own boarding house, when the guests could do with a bit of a shake-up,” said another guest, joining their friendly circle, his mouth rimmed with grease. “You run the show the same way a carnival fire-eater does: it’s a simple trick of converting animal fluids to vapor and thus preventing the chemical fluids from mixing with the solids.”

“Quintessentially,” said the first guest.

“We’d set it off with fireworks though,” said the second. “It’s the sesame on the bun, Holtzclaw. Too bad you don’t have fireworks.”

“You have that dynamite,” said a third guest as the friendly circle swelled to a parliament. “What were you going to do with that?”

“You already brought it out from its wrappings. Where did you mean to set it off?”

“Say, you didn’t actually mean to explode part of your hotel?”

“The fire isn’t real, is it? It’s only a lark, yes?”

“My trunk! My antique Saratoga trunk!”

So to prove that the hotel had never been in danger and that the dynamite was only for their entertainment, Holtzclaw was forced to sacrifice a disused springhouse. The purple fire burning on the kitchen building subsided and died as more heads turned toward the main event. Dynamite—enough to bring down the kitchen passageway and thus enough to obliterate a springhouse—was packed into the earth, within and around the little building. Holtzclaw let a sugared-up youngster light the fuse. Dust and dirt was scattered in a fine, even mist across all those assembled.

When the smoke cleared, a geyser of icy water rose from the crater, and a new creek started to trickle down the slopes. Guests lit cigars and called it the most stupendous trick they’d ever seen—a far sight better than that ordinary purple fire—and something that could only come to a crescendo on the morrow, at the gala.

“I think this will be the most successful party I’ve ever thrown,” said Holtzclaw.

“Without a doubt, the most memorable,” said Abigail, shaking cinders from her hair.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

On the day of the gala, while cooks loaded loaf after loaf into the ever-hungry oven, and employees set the tables, and drapers hung the cloths, and the carpenters laid the stage, and banjos and dulcimers tuned themselves, and animate spools made sure their threads were tangle-free, Holtzclaw slipped away to collect Ms. Rathbun. He put on his costume for the gala, which he thought would be a more gallant way to meet her. No one else was in costume yet; Holtzclaw felt, briefly, special.

When he climbed aboard, he did not take any love-apples with him, though the bush was drooping with fruit. The overplump red globes strained at their skin; one had burst into a mess of juice. Holtzclaw kicked it into the lake before the other love-apples started to complain.

The Maiden of the Lake still only had one and a half funnels. The covering to the common area was clouded over with moisture, inside and out. A fuzzy verdancy bloomed in the corners of the dining room. But this mattered less now. There would be time enough for these little concerns, because the Queen of the Mountains was at full capacity, and the gala would win over even the bleakest hearts to the charms of Auraria. After the Queen of the Mountains was flush with tourists’ cash and the dam made rock-solid, there would be an infinite time for Holtzclaw and Ms. Rathbun to complete their project and make it perfect in every detail.

Lizzie Rathbun reposed at the top of the grand staircase, waiting for him. She wore a yellow summer dress and a wide-brimmed hat. Beside her was an overstuffed canvas sack.

“It’s time, Lizzie!” called Holtzclaw. “You’re not in your costume!” He gestured with exaggerated hands at her modest clothing and at his elaborate dress.

“Holtzclaw, you look a fool,” said Ms. Rathbun. “What are you wearing?”

“It’s a fancy dress gala,” said Holtzclaw. “Everyone will look a fool.”

“Yes, but there are costumes that highlight foolishness and costumes that highlight elegance. One can be a princess or a queen or other regal figure, or one can be a clown or a … whatever you are.”

“I’m a pharaoh. One of the oldest and noblest monarchs.”

“They wore bedsheets and headdresses?”

“It was the best I could manage,” said Holtzclaw. “I rather like it.”

“You didn’t have to wear it here,” said Ms. Rathbun.

“Well, what is your costume? Is it in your bag? Let me get it for you.”

Ms. Rathbun hefted the bag over her shoulder and angled her body away from Holtzclaw. “I can manage. I won’t wear my costume between here and the hotel. It’s too delicate. I’ll want a few minutes to sort myself when we get back to land. Besides, I don’t want to be the first partygoer to arrive in the empty room. There’s no fashion in it.”

“There’s a dressing room ready for you,” said Holtzclaw. “You can choose your moment to make your arrival. It is all as you would like.”

“I am not used to such cheer out of you,” said Ms. Rathbun. “It’s wearisome.”

“I have no reason to be sad.” Holtzclaw beamed as broadly as Amenhotep III on the box of Pharaoh’s Flour.

As Ms. Rathbun descended the gangway, slumping under the weight of the bag she carried, she lost her footing. Holtzclaw arrested her fall, indecorously and instinctively grabbing at her waist, but that only served to put him in jeopardy as well. The heavy bag swung backward like a pendulum and pulled the pair back onto the plank. They skittered onto land, their feet failing and stumbling beneath them, and then came to rest in the branches of the love-apple bush.

“You see why I didn’t want to put on my dress too early?” said Ms. Rathbun, extracting herself from a precarious prison of limbs and over-ripe fruit. Ms. Rathbun heaved her cargo onto her back and set off down the path. Holtzclaw hurried to keep up with her but kept throwing backward glances toward their empty ship.

“She’ll be all right unattended?” said Holtzclaw.

“If it sinks, it’s insured,” said Ms. Rathbun.

“Yes, but insurance would not pay if we just abandoned her without a captain or crew. It’s negligent.”

“Then we’ll say that you went down with the ship, Holtzclaw.”