Froelich's Ladder (6 page)

“And like I was saying,” Gak echoed, standing up from the table and pushing out her chair, “he’s at the Logging Camp if he’s anywhere at all. There’s a mail jitney that stops at the Myers & Co. Store—first come, first served. It’ll save you a day’s journey, walking to the coast. You wouldn’t mind, Ma, if I showed our guest to the store?”

Not the faintest utterance passed her ma’s lips, much less a yea or a nay. Still, a curt dialogue was taking place. When Gak had returned with her face beat up, she’d been missing for three days. Dolly and Hollis hadn’t asked any questions, which was unusual for them, but Ma would hold her tongue the longest. Such as it was, she now claimed the final word in their silent debate: blithely humming a hymn and exiting the dining room with the laundry on her hip.

“She don’t mind,” Gak grumbled, sounding unconvincing even to her own ear. Squatting between her siblings, she took a moment to address them, draping her arms around their shoulders and swiveling her head to and fro. “I gotta go now—”

“Again?”

“—but I want y’all to listen. Hollis—you listening? Be good to Ma, and don’t cause her any grief. Dolly’s in charge while I’m away. Dolly, if there’s trouble you and your brother go hide till it’s safe, then run for McHenry’s farm. Everyone remembers which direction that is? Okay, then—gimme a big hug.”

“Is the store very far?” Gordy joked, making a bid for levity, but nobody shared his humor. With her arms wrapped around them, Gak could feel the warmth of her brother and sister, and imagined she could allay all their fears. Truthfully, any assurance would be a lie. Despite the Winchester, the hymnal, and the McHenrys’ farm, death could arrive at any time and take any form: pestilence in the water or a lecherous neighbor. Life was a promise made to be broken, another hole dug in the frozen ground. None of them was really safe.

Outside, the day had become muggy, midges suspended in the air like dust motes. The road they were taking (a path frequented by homesteaders, and not unfamiliar to animal tracks) was narrow and shrouded, such that Gak could reach out and touch the trees on either side. She would’ve been content to walk in silence. Indeed, she might’ve preferred it, only Gordy se
emed beset by guilt.

Stepping over a branch, he commented, “I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

“Who?”

“Your brother and sister—I’m sure they’ll be safe.”

“Safe from what?”

“Carmichael and Nantz,” he promptly replied—because, appa
rently, the Confederates were his only context for danger.

“Those goons?” Gak laughed. “I’m more afeared of bee stings, if I wanted a fright. D’you know how many Rebels we’ve hosted, since the war between the states? Good Lord, it’s been one after the other, on their way up to Canada. I tell ’em, if you hate Negroes so much, why not stay here? We’ve got exclusionary laws! And nooses, they say, and circuit judges. Thanks, but no thanks. Anyway, those two aren’t worth losing sleep over.”

Skipping over a divot in the road, she slapped at a low-hanging limb, provoking a claque of birds to take flight. Gordy observed this feat with bald skepticism.

“Oh, no?” he said. “Weren’t they the ones who bruised your face? I wouldn’t think too generously of whoever did it.”

Delicately probing the flesh around her eye, Gak scowled. “Yeah, well … maybe so. But the joke’s on them, ain’t it? Good luck finding the Logging Camp without my help—if they do float ashore, which I doubt they will.”

Abruptly, Gordy stopped walking.

“You
wanted
to go to the Logging Camp?”

“Sure I do!” Gak declared. “That’s where I was going the whole time. It’s safer traveling in twos and threes—though I might’ve picked better company. What, you thought they nabbed me?”

 “I might’ve been informed,” Gordy grumbled. When Gak failed to provide a timely response, he said it again, and louder. “I might’ve been informed you weren’t their captive. I might’ve known that, before sticking my neck out for you.”

Gak’s first instinct was to deliver a retort: if breakfast hadn’t been reward enough, he should’ve picked up a shovel! But, for once, she thought twice. So far, Gordy had done right by her. He’d kept his word, as well as keeping his hands to himself. If Gak were going to depend on him, she could start by being honest.

“Okay,” she said, “look”—rubbing her nose and scowling—“I’m sorry if you’re mad. And I’m sorry you didn’t know any better. But I’m glad for what you did! You’re right—those two goons did a number on me, all for making a joke. I thought I needed their help. Daddy traveled north in springtime, looking for work, and we haven’t seen him since.”

She could see the revelations striking Gordy, one after another: Ma being a California widow; the necessity of taking on boarders. While they were standing there, a particularly fat cloud moved in front of the sun and the light shifted from ocher to violet. This partial eclipse was followed by a thunderclap, so loud its reverberations spilled pollen on the breeze. They waited for the storm to come, but it never did—just the smell of rain, and electricity in the air.

“He said he’d try Fort Vancouver,” Gak continued. “But every time he leaves, I find him back at the Logging Camp. You ever been there before?”

“To the Logging Camp?” With an embarrassed smile, Gordy confessed, “I’ve never been anywhere but Boxboro.”

“Well, I’ve been there lots of times. Too many times. Lemme show you the way. It’s the least I can do, after the help you gave me.”

As Gordy mulled this idea, Gak tried to appear ambivalent, even when he said, “Sure—why not.”

Resuming t
h
eir march, Gak ob
served, “That was a pretty nifty trick you pulled.” She could hear the relief in her voice, even if Gordy couldn’
t.

“What was?”

“Getting the Rebels to cross the river like that.”

“Yeah, well—it wouldn’t’ve been so nifty if they’d known how to swim.”

“Say, you ain’t an Irishman … are you?”

Gordy gave her a sideways glance. “What do you think?”

“Don’t matter to me,” Gak allowed with a shrug. “Like you said, everyone’s gotta live someplace.”

At the intersection of a wider road, the Myers & Co. Store came into view. The façade was identical to the McMinnville location, which Gak had visited the previous summer: same porch, same rocking chairs, even the same
shade of green they’d painted the trim. She’d never seen anything so faithfully recreated—including the flag at the county clerk’s office, which had been hand-stitched by the clerk’s wife after a trip to Baltimore. Tugging on the door and sounding the chime, Gak noticed Gordy still lingering on the stairs.

“You coming in?”

Looking
up and down the road, he motioned to an empty chair. “I think it’s best I wait. I don’t want to miss it.”

“You couldn’t miss the mail jitney if you tried—not unless you’ve got cotton in your ears. Besides, we’re going on a trip.
We need provisions!”

“Provisions? I haven’t got any money. Do you?”

“I got better,” she replied happily, ushering him through the door. “Store credit!”

Inside, the air was cool. Gak nodded at the counterman, who
glanced up from his ledger.

“You gotta have shoes,” he said to Gordy, pointing at his bare feet. “I can’t be of service if you don’t have any shoes.”

“Oh, hush now, Horace,” Gak scoffed. “Since when is that a rule?”

Undaunted, she continued down the aisles, Gordy trailing. Together they inspected the shelves’ contents: Mason jars, candles, and spools of twine. There were various foodstuffs by the front, but Gak was looking for one item in particular: apricots, which were only in season for a short time and always stored in a cool, dark place.

But when they came to the appropriate corner, the
barrel was empty. All she found was a display of stepladders, neatly folded and stacked against the wall.

“Funny thing,” Gordy said, tilting his head to one side.

“What’s that?”

Stepping closer, he ran his fingers along the moving parts—the planes and hinged stiles. “Makes me homesick, is all. Still, it’s got about as much in common with
Froelich’s ladder as the business side of an oar.”

“A ladder’s a ladder,” Gak replied, plunging her torso into the barrel and kicking her trousers in the air.

“Not so! There’s cat ladders and orchard ladders, roof ladders and trestle ladders. They can be made from rope or hemp. Did you know, the second tallest ladder in history was made of gold?”

Failing to find any apricots at the bottom, Gak climbed out of the barrel. “You don’t say,” she muttered, elbowing past him.

But try as she might to convey disinterest, Gordy proceeded to tell her the entire story—even following Gak up and down the aisles while she made her way back to the counter:

“The pharaoh’s wife commissioned it, after he died. See, in Egypt, it was custom to be buried with your slaves. But the pharaoh’s wife wanted to send more. She worried he wouldn’t have enough, not to last for all eternity, except she didn’t want to disturb his tomb—so she had a golden ladder smelted, and told those slaves to get climbing!”

At the front of the store, with her palms splayed on the counter, Gak considered her options: pickled eggs, rock candy, and a vast assortment of jerky—deer jerky, turkey jerky, even salmon jerky. At her direction, the counterman marked his place in the ledger and shook out a paper sack.

“At dawn,” Gordy said, “the slaves started to climb. But as the day went on, the ladder turned hotter and hotter. By afternoon, the rungs were too hot to hold. When the first hundred slaves fell to their deaths, they all turned to locusts. When the second hundred fell, they all turned to frogs. The third hundred turned to blowflies—until there was so many plagues visited on the land of Egypt that the pharaoh’s wife was stoned to death.”

“Say, Horace,” Gak inquired. “Where’s the apricots? I checked in back, but I couldn’t find any.”

“Late thaw this year—try again in a couple of weeks.” With a smirk and a glance at her companion, the c
ounterman added, “Is that all that you need, Gabrielle?”

“Gabrielle?” Gordy blurted out. “You’re a girl?”

This was entirely the problem with pretending to be a boy:
one innocent remark could ruin the illusion. After she’d been revealed there was no way to talk herself out of it. Gordy would be mad, she knew; nobody liked to be fooled. But at least he wasn’t violent (or didn’t seem to be). If Carmichael and Nantz had learned her secret, she would’ve been raped and murdered for sure.

“Oh, is that a secret?” the counterman said. “Since when?”

“Shut up,” she snapped at him. “Anyway, so what? What’s Gordy short for—Gordon?”

“Yeah, but that’s different. I just thought—”

“Hollis can’t say Gaby—he can’t pronounce it—so he says Gak instead. There’s your mystery. If you’re too dumb to see what’s in front of you, it ain’t my fault. Anything else I can explain for you, Gordon?”

“No, I—”

“Then quit your yapping. Maybe if you stopped talking long enough, you’d know the mail jitney’s here.”

From outside, they could hear a rattle and whinny, wafting on the wing of a rank odor. While the gears continued to turn in Gordy’s head, Gak gathered up her food.

 “Charge it to my account, Horace. And you can wipe that d—ned silly grin off your face.”

With that, Gak was out the door. As her vision readjusted from the dark interior, she spotted the amorphous shape of a horse and carriage. The peculiarities of the driver as he dismounted from the wagon, presumably with a bundle of letters in hand, were only just beginning to emerge.

“You there!” she barked at him, striding right up. “I’m on my way to the coast. Take me there?”

“You, or your friend too?”

Behind her, Gordy had stooped to retrieve a piece of jerky that she’d accidentally dropped. Gak barely afforded him a glance.

“Who says he’s my friend? Are we holding hands? Are we laughing and smiling and telling secrets? Now, can I get a ride with you or not?”

The driver scratched his chin. Blinking in the bright sunlight, Gak was afforded a better perspective of the man: broad across the shoulders, with close-set eyes. Not someone she’d normally care to provoke.

But, contrary to her expectations, he shrugged his assent. “Fine with me, I guess. You can ride in back. Just don’t touch the mail, is all.”

Still frowning, he plodded past them—throwing a quizzical look at Gordy and the piece of jerky in his hand before stepping inside.

“Like I’d want to sit with you,” Gak grumbled. “Oh, you mean I can’t? Well, boo-hoo-hoo.”

Climbing onto the back of the wagon, she girded herself for what was to come. Gordy was still bound for the coast—he’d still require a ride. Maybe he’d ignore her. Most likely he’d tease her, but that would soon lose its sport. What was crucial was that he not mention her sex to the driver, but how could she be assured of that? Even to ask him now would risk being overheard. Gak squirmed as he approached, knowing herself to be completely exposed.

Gordy stopped on the dirt track. “There’s something I mean to get off my chest,” he said. “If I don’t own up to it, I believe I’ll regret it.” Waiting for Gak to catch his ey
e,
he waved the piece of jerky in her face. “I don’t know if this is salmon or maybe something I stepped in, but I’m gonna eat it. I’m gonna eat it, and it’s gonna taste better than your ma’s breakfast. So what do you say about that?”

The horse snorted and pawed at the ground. For her part, Gak stared up at the sky. How to translate this attempt at humor? Clearly, he meant to put her at ease, but why? To what purpose? Far overhead, the clouds cast their shadows upon the land, like pools
of indeterminate depth.

“I lied to you,” she said.

“You don’t need to apologize.”

“Who’s apologizing?” Gak snorted. “I’m just owning what I did.”

“Still, you didn’t lie—you skipped the truth. Is there anything else you might’ve skipped?”