In the Shadow of Denali

by Tracie Peterson

  The room was silent for several seconds. John looked up but couldn’t read the young man’s expression.

  “Wouldn’t that be nice?” Allan’s words were clipped as he tapped the table. “Excuse me, I think I need some fresh air.”

  John didn’t have to guess at what caused Allan’s sudden distress and struggles. No matter the job before them, there was always something between them. Henry Brennan.

  Laying the telegram on the table, John placed his palms on either side of the calendar and map. It’s a good thing he’d given this over to the Lord because there wasn’t any way humanly possible he could carry this burden.

  12

  The busy summer season thrilled Cassidy. While there wasn’t a lot of extra time to spend with her father, she did enjoy the hustle and bustle. Pulling the deboned chickens she’d worked on that morning from the icebox, Cassidy went to work on the stuffing. The kitchen was busy, but no more so than usual. Quiet conversations between the staff echoed off the walls.

  Every day newspapers from around the country would arrive at the hotel detailing the President’s visit, the completion of the railroad, and tall tales about gold, mountains, and an untamed land.

  Dad told her about a group coming in that he planned to take to the Ruth Glacier. She wished she could go along, but gone were the days of Cassidy getting to follow her dad around on one of his jaunts. She had a job of her own now. And one she loved.

  Now that she’d mastered Mrs. Johnson’s soufflé recipe, she’d been given a new recipe each day to learn and conquer. Cassidy loved that the head cook trusted her and relied upon her. It made her feel . . . special.

  Now if she could just break through the older woman’s tough shell. They’d worked together for months and while Mrs. Johnson seemed to trust her more than anyone else, the woman stayed distant from everyone. Did she ever feel lonely like Cassidy? Did she even have any friends?

  Cassidy wondered the same about herself. Could she say that she truly had any friends in Curry? They all knew each other well enough, but she wasn’t ever invited to any of the young women’s get-togethers because she was above most of them as assistant cook. And truth be told, most of the kitchen maids her age were interested in things Cassidy didn’t even want to think about or consider.

  Secretly, she blamed it on the lack of church. If these young people just knew what they were missing, they wouldn’t be caught up in all the worldly nonsense, right?

  With the stuffing made, she grabbed the twine to stitch the birds back up before they were roasted. The tangy sweet smell of the stuffing with onions, celery, and sage made her mouth water.

  Thoughts of church and their church family back in Tanana made her weepy and even more hungry. Oh, how she missed the days of church socials, Sunday morning services, Wednesday evening Bible studies, and the occasional song service on a Saturday afternoon where everyone brought instruments and picnics and they went from one song to another for hours. They didn’t even have any church services in Curry. Her dad led a small Bible study with a few others on Sunday afternoons, but other than that, they had no other fellowship. What was the world coming to?

  “Cassidy Faith,” Mrs. Johnson’s fiery voice broke through. “Are you day-dreaming again?”

  Cassidy blinked and looked at her supervisor, then down at the large needle threaded with twine in her hand. “Um, yes, ma’am. I guess I was.”

  “I should say so.” The woman had her hands on her hips. “You’ve been standing there with that needle in the air for nigh unto two minutes.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Johnson. But this is the last one. I’ll have it ready in a jiffy.”

  “See that you do.” The woman barked and walked out of the kitchen into the dining room.

  Cassidy finished up the chickens and looked down the list at her next task. Dessert. She could handle that without too much thought. But something bothered her about Mrs. Johnson’s demeanor. Granted the woman was never the friendliest of people, but something didn’t seem right today.

  Taking a quick glance at the clock, Cassidy washed her hands and went in search of her boss.

  She didn’t have to go far. Mrs. Johnson stood in the dining room, hands still on her hips.

  Cassidy cleared her throat. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I wanted to check on you.”

  “No need. I’m fine.” She didn’t even turn around. “Just get on with your work.”

  “Well, the chickens are done and I was about to start on the dessert.” Cassidy shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “It seems like something is bothering you, and I wanted to see if I could help.”

  The older woman turned, tears at the edges of her eyes. “Help? You can’t help me, Cassidy Ivanoff. With your sunny attitude, your smiles, and your laughter. No, you can’t help me. Especially not today.”

  What did that mean? “Why not today? I don’t understand. I really do want to help and want to be here for you.”

  The woman huffed and shook her head. “You just can’t let it be, can you? Well, all right then, I’ll tell you why. Today would have been my brother Larry’s birthday—but he’s dead. I don’t expect you to understand since you think the world is covered in gumdrops and rainbows, and while I appreciate your positive attitude, it doesn’t do me any good today.”

  The words stung, but Cassidy couldn’t allow the woman to hurt and feel she was alone. “But I do understand. And more importantly God understands—”

  “Don’t give me that God understands nonsense. Because He doesn’t. If He did, my entire family—all of them—wouldn’t have died of the influenza five years ago.”

  Cassidy gasped. The flu outbreak of 1918? It had killed millions of people around the world. Tears sprang to her eyes. This dear woman had lost everyone? How devastating!

  Mrs. Johnson huffed again. “Don’t get all teary-eyed on me, we have work to do. This is exactly why I didn’t want to say anything to begin with, and you just need to let me be.”

  “But I can’t.” She wiped her face and took a deep breath. This was her chance to share her faith and she couldn’t miss it. “God doesn’t want you to carry this burden any longer. He hates to see you suffer.”

  “I find that all balderdash.” Mrs. Johnson pointed her finger in Cassidy’s face. “If He hates seeing me suffer, then He would have spared my mother and father, my brother, his wife, their three children, my sister, and her son. No, I’d say God rather enjoyed seeing me suffer, don’t you? Either that, or He simply doesn’t care how I feel.” Her last words were full of anguish and anger. She marched back toward the kitchen. “Now, I won’t have any more of this nonsense. We have dinner to prepare and I don’t want to hear another word.”

  Cassidy thought to comment but held back. She walked to the kitchen with Mrs. Johnson’s comments churning through her head.

  “But I don’t expect you to understand since you think the world is covered in gumdrops and rainbows. . . .”

  Did Mrs. Johnson really think that was how Cassidy saw the world? All she’d ever wanted to do was present a positive spirit. There was enough sadness and bitterness in the world to go around, and Cassidy wanted only to offer a smile and an encouraging word. But Mrs. Johnson sounded as if she thought Cassidy foolishly naïve.

  She frowned and felt her brows knit together. “Perhaps I am.”

  There was only an hour before Allan needed to be back in the lobby to help John with the next fishing group. He’d paced his room for almost thirty minutes trying to form a response to Frank, but nothing came. And it needed to get in the mail today. He couldn’t wait any longer, or who knew what Frank would do.

  The battle raged inside his mind. He’d been watching John day in and day out. More than anything, he wanted to know the truth about the man.

  “Looks can be deceiving and few people are the sum total of their appearance,” his father had once said. “Their actions are far more important.”

  Allan had taken that advice to heart in dealing with people a
ll of his life. Why should he handle things any different with John?

  Making a mental list, Allan began to assess John Ivanoff. First the positives. John seemed to care about each person. And no matter how great or small the expedition ended up being, he arranged it all with great care and structure. No room for slacking or careless mistakes. No detail left undone. No request unimportant. The man honestly knew his stuff and Allan had to admit—John Ivanoff was an expert.

  The negatives? Frank believed John responsible for Henry Brennan’s death.

  But the depth of his internal war was so much more than John. And if Allan were to be honest, he’d have to admit that it wasn’t just John who held his thoughts. He needed to know the truth about the man because of his daughter. The employees of the Curry Hotel couldn’t avoid each other. Whether it was meals or staff meetings or just bumping into one another on the stairs or in the lobby—Allan couldn’t avoid her. And he wasn’t even really sure he wanted to anymore. In fact, he’d sought her out every day to talk to her. Even if it was only for a few minutes. He’d told himself it was just to be friendly. But who was he kidding?

  As the past few years had rolled past, Allan felt the growing need for a companion—a wife to come alongside him. His father never failed to praise Allan’s mother for being the one person to stand with him through his darkest hours. There had been too many dark hours for Allan since the war.

  “One day, son, you will find a woman who strikes your interest and then without realizing exactly when it happens, you’ll find that she’s the part of you that was missing and you can’t be whole without her,” his father had told him once.

  Was that how it would be with Cassidy? Already he found himself thinking about her all the time. At first he’d tried to convince himself that it was just because she was John’s daughter, but he couldn’t pretend that any longer.

  Frank admonished him to have nothing to do with John Ivanoff, but Allan couldn’t just walk away. He couldn’t avoid John because he still needed answers about his father, and he couldn’t avoid Cassidy because he needed answers for his heart. Marching over to the chair at the desk, he determined to get the response written.

  Frank was used to getting his way after all these years, and Allan had allowed the man to boss him around after Henry Brennan’s death. But no more. It’s not that he didn’t respect Frank anymore; it was just time for Allan to show that he no longer needed anyone telling him what to do. He was twenty-eight years old and had a college education and a good head on his shoulders. The company was part his—he probably needed to start acting like it. He came to Alaska to follow in his father’s footsteps and to find answers.

  And find answers he would. Right now things didn’t add up.

  Perhaps the only way to find out what had really happened to his father would be to climb the mountain himself. If so, that’s what he’d do.

  Frank would just have to deal with it until Allan was satisfied.

  Heat from the oven blasted Cassidy’s face when she opened the door to the big range. The intensity took her breath away. As she stocked the oven with all the loaves of bread ready to bake, it reminded her of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the book of Daniel. What had the heat been like when they’d been thrown into the fiery furnace? Much worse than this hot oven, and it was more than Cassidy could stand for a few seconds.

  Closing the oven, she thought of her chat with Mrs. Johnson the other day. Things had been stiff between them ever since and Cassidy hated it. The older cook was the closest thing Cassidy had to a friend.

  But even more than that. Cassidy realized something big that day. Bigger than just being seen as a naïve girl who thought the world a beautiful, happy place. She’d never really been challenged in her faith. Not to stand strong, or to defend it, or to even really witness in the way she should. Oh, she’d shared the gospel with lots of people. John 3:16 was her favorite verse. But it had never gotten as intimate as it had with Mrs. Johnson. Hadn’t that been what she’d prayed for? Ever since her chat with Thomas on Deadhorse Hill, she’d prayed for opportunities to be like Daniel and to share her faith no matter the cost.

  Was this her chance? The even bigger question—would Mrs. Johnson listen?

  And for that answer, Cassidy knew she’d have to wait. She understood now why the head cook was closed off. She even understood that almost impenetrable exterior around the woman was in place to protect her from further pain. Unfortunately, it also blocked out the opportunity to take in love. It would take a miracle to break through that armor.

  Good thing she knew Someone in the miracle business.

  She’d just have to wait for the right time. God had a plan for Cassidy here at the hotel. She knew it. And maybe she did look at the world through rose-colored glasses, but that didn’t mean that being positive was wrong. God had blessed Cassidy with so much that she couldn’t help but praise Him for it, and part of that praise was to have a merry heart, even in times of adversity. After all, the Bible said that “a merry heart doeth good like a medicine.” Cassidy paused for a moment, remembering the latter half of that proverb.

  “But a broken spirit drieth the bones.” She barely whispered the words. Both her father and Mrs. Johnson were broken in spirit right now. Allan Brennan too. Cassidy shook her head and sighed. “But what can I do to help them?”

  Mrs. Johnson entered the kitchen and approached Cassidy. “Miss Ivanoff, I owe you an apology for the other day.” Her voice was low and raspy.

  Cassidy was a bit shocked. The head cook never apologized for anything.

  “I’m sorry for taking out my hurt and anger on you.”

  She swallowed. “I’m sorry for pushing, Mrs. Johnson. You were having a day of grief and I butted in.”

  The older woman gave a hint of a smile. “The truth is, you’ve grown on me. And I haven’t allowed anyone to do that for a very long time. We always hurt the ones we love the most, don’t we?”

  Tears sprang to Cassidy’s eyes. “Yes, ma’am. We do.” She reached over and hugged the woman.

  Mrs. Johnson gasped and then squeezed Cassidy back. As she pulled away, she wiped a tear from her eye. “Now, we mustn’t let anyone see us like this.”

  “No, ma’am.” Cassidy glanced around the room. She knew others had seen the display of affection, but all heads were down and it was eerily quiet. Maybe now was her chance to stand up for what she believed. “You know, Mrs. Johnson, what you said about God the other day really got me to thinking.”

  “Oh?” She went to the other side of the table and began kneading more dough.

  “You see, to me, God is loving and comforting. He’s always there for me. Even when I’m the most down.”

  Mrs. Johnson shook her head. “But you’re rarely down, are you? How could you be when your life has been so sweet?”

  “It hasn’t always been ‘sweet.’ And I really don’t see the world as all gumdrops and rainbows.”

  A frown lined the older woman’s face. “I was wrong to say that.”

  “But it did make me think. I haven’t always considered how others regard me. Being happy was important to me because my father always told me it would benefit me far more than being sad. But it doesn’t mean I don’t feel pain or realize that there is a great deal of tragedy in the world. But God has always been there as my loving heavenly Father.” Cassidy grabbed a ball of dough and starting kneading it as well.

  Thunk. The dough hit the table with a puff of flour as Mrs. Johnson stared at it. “I don’t see God that way, I’m sorry to say.”

  “But why?”

  “He’s more like a harsh taskmaster to me. Just sitting up there waiting to punish His children for wrongdoing.”

  Cassidy’s dough hit the surface with an even louder plunk. “But how could you think that? He’s not like that at all.”

  “Life experience, my dear. Life experience.”

  “No, what you’re talking about isn’t life experience, it’s circumstances. We live in a sin-filled worl
d, and that’s what causes all the bad things around us to happen.”

  “Humph.” She slapped her dough down again. “So now you’re saying all the bad has happened because of my sin? That I caused my family to all die from influenza?”

  Cassidy let her dough rest. With all the thudding and slapping and plunking, the rest of the staff were beginning to stare. “No, that’s not what I’m saying at all. Bad things do happen in this world because of man’s sin—but that’s only because we messed up the perfect world we had by sinning in the first place. As soon as we let it in, it ate away at the very fabric of joy-filled life. I couldn’t live without my faith, Mrs. Johnson.”

  “That’s the difference between us. I could. And I do.”

  “But maybe that’s why you’re so unhappy!” Cassidy regretted the words as soon as she said them. She covered her mouth with a flour-covered hand. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  A few moments passed as Mrs. Johnson worked on the dough. “It’s all right, I know you didn’t mean it spitefully. And it’s not like I don’t want to be happy. Doesn’t everyone want to be happy? But the difference is this: your life has always been a fairy tale. Mine has not. You’ve never been truly hurt. I have. More times than I care to remember.” She sighed. “And each time, I’ve asked, ‘Where is God?’”

  Cassidy watched the woman for several seconds. If only her dad weren’t off on the expedition to the glacier. She could really use his advice right now. All she could do was shoot a prayer heavenward and forge on ahead. “That’s a valid question, and one I’m sure many people have asked, long before you and me.” She lowered her voice. “But I’ve asked it too, Mrs. Johnson. That’s something you need to understand.”