by S. L. Stoner
Sage handed Stuart the umbrella he carried, saying, “Hold this over your head so you stay dry and the paper doesn’t turn to mush while you’re writing. Also, I’m arranging for a few men to guard the two of you. Don’t take any mind of them and don’t talk to them.”
At their quizzical looks, he explained., “The men I’m having watch over you are Chinese. If other people realize you are out there with them, it will cause no end of speculation and we need to accomplish this job without attracting a lot of attention.”
They eagerly agreed to his plan and conditions and he left the two of them in a jovial state of mind. He headed toward Mozart’s, his own spirits rising even though the morning drizzle had become pelting rain. Still, he reminded himself, this path we follow is fainter than an old deer trail. No telling whether it’s going to lead us to where we need to go.
NINETEEN
Next morning, Daniel again stood atop a ladder in the foyer. this time loading up his brush with a light green paint and carefully spreading it across the bumpy swirls of the pressed-tin ceiling. Despite the difficulty of the angle, there was neither drop cloth nor paint drops on the floor below.“Mr. Eich says he needs to see you,” he called down as Sage headed toward the kitchen for breakfast.
“How does Mother find the time to pick the paint colors?” Sage wondered as he pushed through into the kitchen where he found Ida vigorously flattening and rolling out pie dough, her pleasantly rounded face flushed from the exertion. “Have you seen Mrs. Clemens this morning?” he asked her, after they exchanged greetings.
Ida’s response was mild, even though her answer meant she was coping with a lot more work. “Why, no, Mr. Adair. She stopped by our apartment yesterday afternoon for a short visit when she was here picking up her things. As far as I know, she’s still taking care of her friend.”
By consensus, they’d not burdened Ida with either the knowledge of Mae Clemens’ relationship to Sage, or with the fact they worked for St. Alban. At times, this subterfuge seemed unnecessarily complicated since Ida, her husband Knute and her nephew, Matthew, all lived in the second floor apartment above Mozart’s. Doubtless they knew of the strange goings-on taking place in the building. Despite this, they said nothing, keeping their inevitable speculations strictly to themselves.
“Tell me, how was it that Daniel gained entry to paint the foyer?”
“When I came down this morning, he was waiting on the back porch with his full paint bucket. I figured you’d want me to let him in to work. Was I wrong?” She paused in her rolling to look at him, using the back of her flour-dusted hand to brush a straying curl off her forehead. She looked tired. A feeling of guilt jabbed Sage. With neither himself nor Mae Clemens around, the burden of running Mozart’s fell onto the shoulders of this already busy woman.
“No, that was the right thing to do, Ida. I’m just wondering who is giving Daniel his orders.”
“Hmm, now there’s a puzzle,” she said, before resuming her baking. “All this time, I’ve thought that Daniel was painting under your orders, so I guess I don’t know.”
“It’s probably Mrs. Clemens who is giving him instructions. In the meantime, I better shake a leg. I’ve got lots still to do.” As an afterthought, he asked, “Everything going okay here?”
There was an ironic glint to the woman’s bright blue eyes as she said,“Yes, the routine’s the same. Long as I keep at it, we’ll be all right” The loud thump of her rolling pin seeming to underscore both her resolve and, maybe, a touch of pique.
s s s
Sage was the only European-type walking Chinatown’s crowded sidewalks. To his delight he saw that a sun break was pulling a few diminutive Chinese women from their cramped homes to step carefully about on wooden platform clogs. American immigration laws made sure their presence on the street remained a rare sight. Mostly it was Chinese men who filled these streets. Sage considered these industrious immigrants to be a cut above average. They’d braved a treacherous sea voyage to Mexico and a trek through the blazing desert into America, all the while knowing what lay ahead was the loneliness of many years’ separation from their loved ones. Unlike European immigrants, the Chinese would always be a minority, each one an easy target for misplaced blame and violent race hatred. He sometimes wondered if immigrants, in general, weren’t the best example of the country’s founding spirit. Forever strangers in a strange land, they suffered, endured, adapted and succeeded.
Sage liked strolling through Portland’s small Chinatown. These industrious foreigners had transformed the few buildings they were allowed to occupy. The elaborately carved entryways, wooden balconies and even round “moon windows,” all lacquered red and added onto the otherwise staid brick fronts, made the street exciting and strange. The Asian culture’s imprint was everywhere. Vibrant crimson signs sporting intricate gold characters swung outside cramped businesses. Summertime, woolen blankets flapped overhead and red paper globes jittered in the breeze, as if dancing to the eery wails of bamboo flutes that wafted out open windows. Today’s rain guaranteed there were no flapping blankets or jittering paper globes. Instead, neighbors talking and laughing loudly crowded the streets, their slender hands gesturing excitedly as though they had not seen each other for a long while.
After the commotion outside, Fong’s provision store was calm. Although, in here, it was the tumultuous combination of smells that demanded attention. Pungent ginger, garlic, incense and other indecipherable scents filled the air. Fong’s wife, Kum Ho, came forward to smile at Sage and bow in greeting. Sage returned the courtesy before she led him to the back of the shop and into the couple’s living quarters. The cloth slippers cladding her small feet let her move soundlessly across the room.
Herman Eich lay upon a cot that Fong likely set up in deference to the ragpicker’s western bones. Sage took a seat in an ornately carved ebony chair next to the cot. Mrs. Fong silently retreated from the room, most certainly to brew the delicate tea she knew Sage liked.
A flush stained Eich’s cheeks and his dark eyes glittered with fever. Still, he reached out a gnarled hand to touch Sage’s.
“Thank you for mounting my rescue party. A few more hours and I would not be alive to receive the tender ministrations of the beautiful and gracious Mrs. Fong.”
“Thank Daniel for that. Fong and I wanted to wait for daylight until Daniel insisted we search the other side of the ravine for you.”
“I thanked Daniel for his persistence. He came by early this morning.” Eich’s broad forehead puckered and his lower lip jutted out. “That young man worries me.”
“Well, rest easy on that account,” Sage said,“Last I saw him, he was on top of a ladder painting the restaurant’s ceiling. I expect he’ll stay out of trouble there.”
Eich’s face didn’t relax. “I remember myself when I was his age. I’m not sure whether I could have coped with a tragedy like his.”
“Were you here in Portland, back then?” Sage asked. These last few days made him want to know more about this man who had somehow managed to captivate his pragmatic mother, Fong and even, he admitted ruefully, himself.
Eich’s face relaxed as he lapsed into bemused recollection. “Such an idealist I was. I came to Oregon from New York in 1883 as part of a grand Jewish experiment. We trekked across the isthmus of Panama and caught a coastal steamer to Portland. We took the train south until its end. From there, we hiked many miles into a wooded valley. We called it New Odessa because many of my companions originated in Odessa in Russia. Not me though, I am a New York Jew, born and bred. Still, I reached these western shores all fired up with ideals, believing utopia possible provided we created an environment of intellectual stimulation and spiritual ecstacy.” Eich paused, seemingly lost in his memories of twenty years ago.
“What happened to New Odessa? I don’t remember hearing of an Oregon town with that name.” Sage asked.
Eich’s chuckle quickly became a deep cough that flamed his weathered face. Once he caught his breath he answered, “Oh, w
hat usually happens over time whenever two or more human beings get together and attempt to manifest their dreams. Little disappointments, a few disasters, and finally the inevitable leave-takings as each made the decision to return to the wider world. For most, it became a journey back into practicality, their idealism tempered by their fear of the future—their own future—not humanity’s.” His smile was weary as he asked, “Have you ever noticed that it is usually our own aging that finally convinces us of our own mortality?”
“But not you. You didn’t journey back into a traditional life,” Sage said.
“No, I never did,” Eich agreed, as he shook his head on the pillow. “For me, New Odessa was never a disappointment. For a few, brief, sunlit years, New Odessa was the dream made manifest, a sparkling gem of what is possible in the human heart.”
“Yet, the experiment failed.”
Eich’s shoulders shrugged beneath his blanket.“What’s failure? Sometimes I think that failure yields more authentic lessons than does success. If an experience leads to growth, is that more a failure than if you never sought the opportunity to change at all?” He smiled. “New Odessa is alive out there. In their hearts and in their stories and maybe living on in their children and their children’s children.”
Sage shifted uncomfortably. “Today you are a ragpicker. Why, Mr. Eich? You are an educated man, capable of becoming anything at all. Why a ragpicker?”
“Why not a ragpicker? Humanity engrosses me. There is much to learn from the detritus of other people’s lives. Besides, the bits and pieces I restore allow me to lift the hearts of humble people. And, trundling from dustbin to dustbin, I enjoy the opportunity to gaze upon the verdant hills, the snow-topped mountains and to sometimes glimpse inexpressible beauty in the people I meet. Take you, Sage, for instance. And your lovely mother and,” Eich’s hand gestured at the room, “Mrs. Fong, who has graciously opened her home to a low-status, ragpicking Occidental.”
“I notice you’ve called me ‘Sage’ twice now.’”
“Ah yes, a much more approachable name than John Sagacity Adair. No mystical powers required, though. In the excitement of your kidnapping, Mae and Mr. Fong let the name slip. I suspect that name is only one small secret among many bigger ones, is it not? Anyway, ‘Sage’ is a name that suits you, I think. Mae named you well at your birthing. A name to grow into one day, God willing.”
Sage nodded saying nothing. Evidently Eich had figured out that Mae was his mother. Still, Sage remained uncertain what to tell this man and what not to reveal. Eich sensed his hesitation. “I know you are on the strike line. I know you are worried about the bridges. I know you want your friend, Leo Lockwood, to be freed from jail. Perhaps that is all I need to know because I am in sympathy with each of those concerns.”
Sage sighed, “I appreciate your sympathy and your suggestions even more so.”
Eich shifted on the cot and closed his eyes briefly, as if the movement exhausted him. Opening his eyes, he said, “It seems my fevered brain wants to mull over Mackey the elder’s murder but, so far, an explanation eludes me.
“I actually received some information that might pertain to his death,” Sage said and told Eich of the conversation he’d heard taking place on the other side of the cooperage wall.
Once again Eich’s eyelids dropped briefly before he opened them to say, “Yes, that conversation is suggestive. Yet it fails, I think, to dispose of the question. I can’t shake the feeling that how Mackey was murdered is as important as the fact he was murdered. Trussing him up like that tells us something about his killer’s state of mind. Just what, I am not sure.”
“What is it that you are thinking about the killer’s state of mind?”
“Well, I subscribe to a theory about what motivates people. Some might automatically discount my theory as too simplistic. I keep testing it, though, and it’s generally held true over the years.”
“What’s this theory?” Sage leaned closer, hoping to hear the words that would reveal the right path, steer him in the right direction.
Eich’s voice diminished to a soft rumble. “Most animals make sounds that communicate their inner state of being. People sounds are more deceptive, more tricky, more complicated—so you need to listen carefully, beyond their words to hear their inner sound, the constant tone that runs beneath their life like an underground river.”
The other man’s face had turned scarlet, as if his fever was rising. Sage shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Eich was diving a little deep. Maybe his fever was affecting his thinking.
Despite his deteriorating condition, Eich’s perceptions remained keen. “No, no. I see from your face you are thinking ‘crazy old man,’” he said. “Let me give you an example. You understand and even accept, I am sure, that the sound of grief is a wail. Is that not true?”
Sage nodded cautiously. He wasn’t sure whether he should stop the ill man from talking further. He didn’t because some part of his mind was insisting that what Eich had to say might contain the answer to many nagging questions.
Eich didn’t pause. “And, you know people whose grief consumes and directs their lives, is that not true? To the point where you might say their life is one long wail?”
Sage nodded again, thinking of a prostitute he’d once met in Seattle, the widow of a murdered union organizer. She’d abandoned all hope when her man died. A “continuous wail’ would be a fair description of her alcohol-soaked life now.
Eich continued,“My opinion is that where the driving force of a life is hate, that life is experienced as a roar. Or how about a life of fear, can you see it as being a prolonged squeak? You’ll agree, won’t you, that those characterizations might sound a ring of truth?”
“Maybe. What about greed? What sound does a greedy man’s life make?”
“I’d think you, in your authentic work whatever that work is, often hear the snarls of greedy men.”
Sage laughed. “‘Snarl’ is the appropriate word all right, though I don’t see how your analysis helps to identify Abner Mackey’s killer.”
“Yes, well, it is my thought that the man who killed Mackey, because of the method he chose, his sound was more like a roar, not the snarl you’d expect of a greedy man willing to kill his own father. A hate-filled man might tie someone up so he had to watch his death approach. A greedy man would simply knock him out because the victim’s suffering was irrelevant to the killer’s goals “
Sage shook his head even as he struggled to apply the theory. Eich’s face was now deeply flushed. Sage knew the conversation had to end yet he didn’t resist asking, “What sounds does my life or Mae’s or Mr. Fong’s make?”
Eich’s eyes twinkled with a warmth that made Sage smile in response. The ragpicker said, “I am still trying to fit the three of you into my theory. At this point, if I might say, it is just possible that the three of you are a chorus heralding the possibility that ‘joy cometh in the morning.’ Am I right, Sage?”
Sage just stared as Eich continued, “Something like this,” and recited:
Healing is here! Oh Brother sing it! Laugh, oh heart that has grieved so long. Love will gather your woe and fling it, Over the world in waves of song.
Poem finished, the ragpicker leaned back against his pillows exhausted, the fevered brightness of his eyes now half-shuttered by drooping eyelids. Sage spoke into the silence, “I don’t know, Mr. Eich. These days I think I’m more in the bellowing, roaring camp than in the singing one.”
“If that is true, John Sagacity Adair, your decisions, your actions, are going to move you away from that which you seek,” Eich replied.
“And, just what is it you think I seek?”
“Justice. The bright light of justice in the midst of a confused and confusing world,” Herman Eich whispered and closed his eyes.
s s s
Later in the day, misgivings about the strike’s outcome harried Sage’s footsteps as he trudged toward the Mackey lumber mill. Maybe it was time to accept failure and move on. Maybe
it was just stubborn bullheadedness and not common sense that kept him going. He wanted to give up, to slough off the uncertainty and likely failure. He also wanted to take some dramatic action, to push the whole mess to a final climax. Stuck, unable to decide what to do, he let the worry go. The only answer right now was to keep setting one foot in front of the other until time and events made the correct decision clear.
When he reached the top of the road leading down to the strike line, he saw invigorated strikers clustered together at the far end. Their inarticulate shouts vibrated in the cold, crystalline air as they responded to the man standing atop Leo’s soapbox. Sage stepped up his pace. Once he strode closer, he realized the man on the soapbox wasn’t a striker. Instead, that stranger, O’Reilly, was booming out his words and repeatedly punching the air with his fist. Snatches of his words drifted to Sage, “. . . how long is Mackey going to kick us in our rear slats before we take him on? Are we men . . . complacent sheep . . . the slaughter?” Irritation flashed. Ever since he showed up, this O’Reilly character had worked continuously to snatch the leadership away from the genuine strikers. Sage searched the group, seeking Henry, the union’s vice president, who was supposed to be in charge during Leo’s absence. Henry looked glum, as did the
