Meanwhile the card players were gambling noisily for pennies; the crap-shooters were yelling incantations to the dice; the bawdy joke tellers were putting their heads together and then exploding in obscene laughter.
Next, three girls perched on barstools, crossed their knees and sang “She’s only a bird in a gilded cage,” while the patrons yelled, “Ain’t the one in the middle a dinger! Chip chip chip!”
One quiet logger who was not a part of the raucous group tried to join one of the groups around the tables. He was shooed away, and someone shouted, “Vamoose, Stinko.” Wandering over to the bar, he was rebuffed again, and one of the river-drivers barked, “Casse-toi, Bouc Puant!” Whitey sent him to sit at the end of the bar and told Lucy to take him a drink. Sitting there alone, Stinko pulled a mouth-organ from his pocket and entertained himself with simple tunes.
It was a lively Saturday night at the Hotel Booze. Two lumberjacks sang several verses about “the frozen logger who stirred his coffee with his thumb.” Two sailors walked around the room on their hands, and one of them did cartwheels the length of the bar top, while barflies yelped and grabbed their drinks. “How about pourin’ some more eagle-sweat, Whitey?”
At the card table, tempers were flaring. “You cheatin’ hell-pup!” Fists started to swing. Immediately Jake was on the scene, collaring the two rowdies, one in each hand and giving them the bum’s rush out the side door, leading to the alley. He returned brushing the dust off his hands, and Whitey signaled to the trio of sailors, who sang, “Michael, row the boat ashore, hallelujah!” Quietly the evicted pair sneaked back into the saloon, one of them holding a red-stained rag to his nose and acting as a crutch for the other, who was limping.
“Whitey!” someone shouted. “Why ain’t George here? Has he gone to get his teeth fixed?”
“George won’t be comin’ here any more,” said the saloonkeeper. “He got in a fight Thursday night and was sluiced.”
“Sluiced! Holy Mackinaw! Where’ve they got ’im?”
“In Pete’s funeral parlor next door. Can’t bury him till Monday. They’ve got him on ice. Pete built him a pine box, but George didn’t have money for a headstone, so we’re taking up a collection.” Whitey put a tin cup on the bar and rattled the coins in it. One by one the mourners filed past and dropped a few pennies in the cup.
Then a lumberjack yelled, “Let’s go and get ’im! Let’s bring ol’ George back for one last drink together!”
“Yahoo!” Six volunteers bolted out the side door, while Whitey and the barmaids poured and served, and the customers cheered and stamped their boots.
Soon there was kicking at the alley entrance, and Jake opened the double doors to admit the pallbearers with a six-foot pine box. The roomful of rowdies was strangely silent.
The pallbearers shouted, “Move three stools away! . . . Gotta prop ’im up! . . . Lean the box against the bar! . . . Whitey, got a crowbar? . . . Hang onto the box. . . . Keep it upright!”
With the wrenching sound of boards and nails, the lid of the coffin came off, and the audience gasped. There was George—stiff, chalk-faced, still in his bloody clothing.
Two gunshots shattered the breathless quiet! And the lights went out.
The room was in darkness only long enough for the reenactors—including the white-faced George—to line up, facing the audience, who responded with whoops, cheers, applause, whistles and yahoos.
The Rikers had to leave, but Qwilleran and most of the others attending the preview mingled with the players and congratulated them.
Whitey explained, “This is a reenactment of a true incident that took place right here in the Hotel Booze. His name wasn’t George. We don’t know what his name was or which of the headstones in the old loggers’ cemetery is his. My great-grandfather was a stonecutter, and the story has been handed down in our family.”
Qwilleran singled out Stinko for congratulations and questions. “Whose idea was it to have a character with a B.O. problem?”
“It was Roger’s idea,” was the answer, “but I volunteered. It gave me a chance to do a little character acting and play my harmonica. They say the stench in lumber camps was horrendous: Forty men sleeping in one big shanty, drying their snow-soaked socks around a potbellied stove, with no facilities for washing up. Phooey!”
Qwilleran handed out compliments: To Jake for his strong-arm act; to the river-driver for his French accent; to the girls for their provocative maneuvers. He learned that the singing sailors came from the chorus of Pirates of Penzance, and the acrobats were high school gymnasts.
Jake said to him, “Have you heard anything about a movie being made in Moose County—about the logging era?”
“Not a word! Where did you hear it?” As a journalist Qwilleran hated being in the dark—about anything.
“Well, I’m working at my father’s gas station this summer, and a guy with an out-of-state license said he was an advance man, lining up muscle-men as extras in a lumberjack film. He told me to keep it under my hat because another film producer had the same idea, and they wanted to beat the competition.”
“Hollywood epic or independent documentary?”
“He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask, because I wasn’t interested. I have this job with my dad and a commitment to the reenactors, plus I’m gonna be a father in August! First time!”
“Congratulations!”
“Thanks. It’s exciting, all right! And terrifying, in a way.” Jake grinned sheepishly.
Qwilleran said, “The producers won’t have trouble finding their extras. There are more Paul Bunyans per acre in Moose County than in any other place I’ve known!”
“My dad says we’re descended from Vikings. He tells some good stories.”
Qwilleran drove home in good spirits. Good show! Good dinner! And a few leads for the “Qwill Pen” column and Short & Tall Tales.
The Siamese were waiting with loud vocal complaints and irritably jerking tails that seemed to say, You’re late! . . . Where’ve you been? . . . Where’s our stuff?
“You missed a good show tonight,” Qwilleran told them as he prepared their bedtime treat. He himself had a cup of coffee and a black walnut bombshell from the supply Mildred had given him. Polly would disapprove; too many calories. Where was Polly tonight? He wondered.
He had another bombshell.
chapter fourteen
Qwilleran slept uneasily Wednesday night, burdened with knowledge he could not share. While others hoped and prayed for Doyle’s rescue, he knew that the photographer was dead. And he knew—or thought he knew—that it was no accident. Many times he had heard Koko’s blood curdling cry of distress, and it always meant murder. Yet how could the cat know? Qwilleran found himself stroking his moustache repeatedly and telling himself: It’s only a hunch.
The Siamese had apparently slept well. They were up and about early, making subtle reminders that a new day had dawned. They pounced on his middle; Koko yelled fortissimo in his ear; Yum Yum found it amusing to bite his nose, ever so gently.
The seven o’clock newscast offered no further details about the search for a missing person. He walked up to the inn, hoping that Nick’s connections at the courthouse would net some inside information. As for the day’s mail, it had not yet been picked up at the post office. Qwilleran was in no hurry to see his postcard; Polly’s rambles with Walter were suddenly less troubling than the fate of the photographer. He had a quick breakfast and returned to the creek without waiting for the mail. He was in time to meet a motorcycle messenger delivering a package from John Bushland. The accompanying note read: