Land Sakes

by Margaret A. Graham

  “No thanks,” I said. “I don’t drink.”

  “If you lived in Alaska, you’d have to drink.” She sat down and started drinking the one she had poured for me. “Mrs. Winchuster, where you from?”

  “Newport, Rhode Island,” she said.

  “And I’m from Live Oaks, South Carolina,” I told her.

  “Well, I’ll be! I’m from Mississippi—sixty miles outta Jackson.”

  “What brought you to Alaska?” I asked.

  “That crazy husband I married. I had a few husbands, but he was the craziest. This fool Billy Tyson showed Tom a gold nugget. Said he found it up here and that there was buckets more where that come from. The only hitch was, Billy needed money to sink a shaft to get at where the gold was at. Said any man willin’ to put up two or three thousand dollars, he’d take on as a partner to share and share alike in the mining business.

  “Fool that he was, Tom was in a fever pitch to sell out and move up here, sure he’d make a killing in gold. He wouldn’t listen to a word I said. The next week we pulled up stakes and flew up to Juneau.

  “Turned out, Billy Tyson wasn’t nothin’ but a drunk. They dug a shaft but never found a speck of gold. Once Tom’s money was spent, Billy took off, and we never saw hide nor hair of him after that.

  “Crazy as he was, Tom wouldn’t give up workin’ the claim. I warned him that with all this rain coming down nearly every day and night, one day the dirt above that mine was gonna give way and that shaft cave in on him. But, like I say, he wouldn’t listen to me.

  “Sure enough, one day Tom didn’t come home, and when I went lookin’ for him, I found the shaft not only caved in but a good ten feet under dirt. I could have dug Tom out, but why bother? He had done buried hisself.”

  “Willie your son?” I asked.

  “Heavens, no! He took up here ’bout a year ago when his motor give out on him. Drifting on the big water, like as not he would have drifted clean out to sea, but he saw my light up here and started hollering. I heard him and put out to rescue him. He don’t usually stay here, but he’s in and out.”

  “How’d you get mixed up with Alphonso?”

  “It’s Willie. He was down in Ketchikan, and Alphonso asked him if he knew where there was a hideout someplace where a man would be safe from the law. That right there should have told Willie this was something he don’t want no part of, but not Willie. He plays the big man and tells Alphonso there’s no better place than mine for a hideout. Tells him where it’s at and how to get here.

  “Then Alphonso asked him if he would like to make a thousand dollars and, of course, Willie don’t think to ask questions, he just said yes, and that sealed the deal. Alphonso told him he’d see him in Juneau about the plans.”

  “But Daisy—why did you go along with Willie?”

  “Had no choice. Before I knew anything about Willie’s big deal with these crooks, that Tony and Pee-Wee come up here in a chopper to check out my place. Said they were looking for real estate to buy. I asked how they found out about my place, and they said they met up with Willie and he told them.

  “Well, that sounded okay. Willie knows I want to get back to Mississippi, and if I could sell this place I would be on my way. But before I know anything about this Alphonso gang, this morning Willie shows up. And I’m glad to see him, thinking he had sent them two buyer prospects. Then he asks me if I would like to make five hundred dollars. Pore as I am, I can’t look five hundred dollars in the face and walk away from it, so I said, ‘That all depends; what would I have to do?’

  “When Willie told me they would be bringing you two up here for us to hide, I coulda killed him! It was too late to do anything but stay put. You get in the way of men like Alphonso, and they’d sooner shoot you dead as hear you out.” She got up from her chair. “Now I got to go help up the beans.”

  I followed her to see if there was anything I could do to help. She filled a plate with beans and handed it to me. I took it in to Mrs. Winchester and went back for Willie’s plate. Then we served ourselves.

  We ate balancing the plates on our knees. After all the rich food we had been eating on the trip, those beans tasted mighty good. Even while Willie was eating he didn’t put down that gun. I was wondering if what Daisy had said was true, that he was doomed either way, if the law caught him or if the gang killed him to keep him from testifying against them. He’d be better off throwing in with us, helping us escape and get back to civilization.

  “Willie,” I said, “you heard what Daisy said. If you get caught holding us this way, they’ll send you to prison. What’s worse, knowing you can identify them, those crooks ain’t likely to let you live to testify against them.”

  “I heard what she said.”

  “Your best bet is to help us get back to Juneau. You’d be a hero, plus Mr. Winchester will pay you a big reward.”

  Daisy pitched in to help out. “That’s right, Willie. You got nothing to lose and a lot to gain by doing what Esmeralda says.”

  “Leave me alone! I can handle this.”

  “Well, just think about it, Willie,” I said.

  That night Daisy put up two cots in the room where we had sat all day, and she showed me a chamber pot in the kitchen in case we had to go in the night. Daisy was going to sleep in the kitchen on a pallet with the radio on so as not to miss the news.

  I asked her where Willie would sleep, and she said he wouldn’t sleep, he’d stay put sitting up in that chair.

  How stupid can he be? “How does he think we could get away from here?”

  “He don’t think straight, Esmeralda, and it’s no use arguing with him. That boy is scared of his own shadow. He’s mortally afraid of lightning, passes out at the sight of blood, and now that he has got hisself beholden to Alphonso, he’d sooner shoot us as get shot by them. Willie’s so nervous, the least little thing could set him off.”

  Well, needless to say, that night I didn’t get much sleep—and neither did Mrs. Winchester. With that radio going and no bedding on those army cots, comfort was out of the question. Only once during the night did Willie leave that chair—and that was to go out on the porch to relieve himself.

  Daisy had given me a lot to think about, but Mrs. Winchester wanted to talk.

  “Esmeralda, do you think they’re going to kill us?”

  I had to be honest. “I don’t know,” I whispered. “The best that could happen is they’ll get the ransom and make a quick getaway, and we’ll never see them again. It’ll be up to Daisy or the FBI to get us back to civilization. But on the other hand, even if they get the money and take off, since we know who them three are, they might come back themselves or send somebody else to kill us.”

  “Esmeralda, I’m not prepared to die.”

  “Well, I can help you with that.”

  Hesitating as she did, I had started to say something more when she spoke up. “Do you remember my telling you about when I was a little girl—how my nanny told me where babies come from?”

  I had to think on that one. “Yes, I remember that. She told you babies come from heaven.”

  “She did. And do you remember that time when I heard somebody talking about Jesus on the radio and I asked her who Jesus was?”

  It was easy to remember that one. “Yes,” I said, “I remember. She turned off the radio and told you you shouldn’t listen to such as that.” Where is she going with this?

  “Esmeralda, when I was lying in the hospital after my accident, I had a dream… I have never told anyone in the world what I dreamed. It was sacred—something special for me only…”

  “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  “Yes, I do… In my dream I saw this platform, which to me was heaven, because there were babies in baskets on the railing around the platform. Coming down from the platform were steps that ended on the brink of a rushing stream. Jesus was standing on one of the lower steps, reaching out his hand to me. He wanted me to take his hand and swing round onto that bottom step and go with him to heaven.
”

  I could see in my mind’s eye what she was telling me. “Were you afraid?”

  “I wasn’t afraid, but I didn’t want to leave and go with him… Esmeralda, I said no.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “All through the years, ever since, I have regretted that I said no. Do you think Jesus will ever forgive me for that sin?”

  “Yes, I know he will.” I thought of something Splurgeon said. I told her, “Winnie, it would take an angel’s tongue to describe Jesus’s love for you.”

  “But it was awful of me to say no.”

  “I’ve done worse than that. When I was a little girl, I knew I should become a Christian, but I didn’t. I think I always believed Jesus suffered on the cross in order to forgive sin, but I thought I had plenty of time to decide about that. Then my mother died. My heart was broke, and I had no one to turn to. One verse kept coming to my mind, and I knew the Lord was reaching out to me.”

  “Do you remember the verse?”

  “How could I ever forget it? ‘The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.’ Like all children, I wasn’t perfect, but I realized that the worse sin of all is refusing the love of Jesus. That’s when I must have become a Christian. I don’t know the day nor the hour when, but I know Jesus has saved me because that burden of guilt is gone.”

  “You mean he didn’t give up on you?”

  “No, he didn’t. And the Lord was seeking you back then when he gave you that dream, and he is seeking you now.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “I know so. Splurgeon said, ‘No sinner was ever half as eager for Christ as Christ is eager for the sinner.’”

  “What do I do?”

  “Just ask him to forgive you, and he will.”

  “But Esmeralda, it’s more than the dream bothering me. It’s my drinking. I can’t stop drinking.”

  “I know you can’t, but if you come to Jesus, he will change you. He will give you power to stop drinking. Don’t you have a lot of other questions you need answered?”

  “I suppose so. But I’m not smart like you, Esmeralda. I’m only a simple woman who needs forgiveness and needs help to live the kind of life you live.”

  “Then, Winnie, just bow your head and tell him what you want.”

  She was quiet for a while, and then she whispered, “I will.”

  30

  The next morning, I was folding up the cots and Daisy was in the kitchen frying fish when the news came on the radio.

  “Two passengers have been reported missing from the cruise ship Amsterdam and are believed to have fallen overboard in the Juneau harbor. Missing since dinner last night are two women, Mrs. Winifred Winchester, wife of Philip Winchester, the well-known financier, and her companion, Mrs. Esmeralda McAbee. It is thought that one of the two women fell overboard, and in the effort to rescue her, the other one drowned as well. Search teams are searching the harbor, hoping to recover the bodies.”

  The newscaster turned to other news.

  “Would you hear that!” Daisy exclaimed.

  “It never crossed my mind they’d think we fell overboard,” I said.

  Willie’s eyes were about to pop out of his head. “What if they don’t never know no better?”

  “Don’t worry, Willie, you’ll get your money,” I told him. “Once news of the ransom note comes out, they’ll call off the search for our bodies, and then we’ll see what happens.”

  We ate breakfast, then I went in the kitchen to help Daisy with the dishes. I mainly wanted to talk with her. “Daisy, we got to think this thing through or we are all going to wind up dead as doornails.”

  “I know it, but with Willie like he is, there ain’t no way to get around him. He’s got no more sense than to think that once that ransom is paid, he’ll get his money and that’ll be all there is to it.”

  “I hate to say this, but Mrs. Winchester told me her husband won’t pay the ransom. It’s a long story that I’ll not go into, but you know how these rich men are. It ain’t above any one of them to be in back of something like this, hiring somebody to murder their wife. If that’s the case here, there is no way you and me will be left alive to testify. On the other hand, if this is truly a kidnapping and Winchester don’t pay the ransom, them three goons will see to it that we’re bumped off.”

  “I know that’s the truth, but what can we do?”

  “Daisy, you know Mrs. Winchester is filthy rich.”

  “Yeah, I heard that.”

  “Well, lemme tell you something—she is mighty careless about jewels; won’t put them in hotel safes or nothing. When I found out she leaves them any old place, I knew sooner or later somebody was going to help themselves to every diamond and ruby she has got, and when that happened, I’d be the prime suspect.”

  “That’s right. They’d sooner pin it on you than get to the bottom of a case like that.”

  “Well, now, if Mrs. Winchester would be able to offer Willie half a million dollars in jewels, don’t you think that would change his mind and he’d go along with helping us get away?”

  “I wish I could say yes, but there is no way under the sun that he would. In the first place, he don’t value nothin’ but cold cash. Give him rubies and diamonds and he’d think no more of them than what comes out of a Cracker Jack box. Besides, he wouldn’t know what to do with them.”

  We finished the dishes and went back to sit in that little room. Well, I tried. I knew it was a long shot, but I was awful let down. All them jewels around my middle but not worth a dime.

  Mrs. Winchester asked Daisy to turn up the radio so we would be sure to hear if there was more news. I thought Mrs. Winchester looked pretty calm considering what we were going through. I got out a Gospel of John, and she asked me to read out loud. I was glad to do that, because then Willie and Daisy would also hear some of the things Jesus said and did.

  By midday a talk show was interrupted by a news flash. “Today the Associated Press has learned that Mrs. Winchester and her companion, who were reported yesterday to have fallen overboard from the cruise ship Amsterdam, did not fall overboard but have been taken hostage. A ransom note was delivered to Mr. Philip Winchester at 8:00 last night, Eastern Standard Time. We will keep you posted as developments occur.”

  That announcement meant we were moving that much closer to whatever fate was in store for us, and I knew we had to do something soon or we would die.

  I got up to go out on the porch. Willie jerked up the gun. “What’s the matter, Willie, do you think I’m going to jump or something? Mrs. Winchester, you stay inside and keep listening to the radio. Willie, you guard her good, now.”

  Daisy laughed and followed me onto the porch.

  It was raining hard, and with the radio blaring, I was sure Willie couldn’t hear us talking. “Daisy, what are we gonna do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I knew Daisy was on our side, but getting Willie to join us seemed impossible. Without him and that gun, it would be simple for us to crank up one of those boats under the house and go by the water down to Juneau.

  As I thought on it, I finally did get an idea. I thought it all through before I shared it with Daisy. Then I explained all the details and what part she would play in the plan.

  When I finished, she said, “It might work. When the rain lets up I’ll tell Willie I’m going fishing. I’ll catch enough fish for our supper and come back. Then I’ll gas up my boat and fix his so it won’t run. That way we’ll be set to go if we get the chance.”

  We heard Mrs. Winchester calling us, and we ran inside. The radio was sputtering, but I could hear that Philip Winchester had offered a five-hundred-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to the safe return of his wife and her companion.

  I can’t tell you what that meant to Mrs. Winchester. She just fell apart sobbing. I hugged her and let her cry her heart out.

  31

  Having stayed awake all night, Willie looked like a zombie, but he was no
less trigger-happy. Daisy spoke to him as she was putting on her slicker. “This rain ain’t never gonna let up, but if we want something to eat for supper, I got to go fish.”

  I helped her get the gangplank down, and she left. I could hear her under the house working with the boat, and it wasn’t long before the motor started. Soon it was humming across the open water.

  I was anxious to fill Winnie in on our plan, so I said, “Excuse me, Willie, but I got to go in the kitchen and use the chamber pot. I’ll have to close this door.” No sooner did I go in there but I opened the door a crack, caught Winnie’s eye, and beckoned to her. Right away, she caught on that something was up. “Mrs. Winchester,” I said for Willie’s benefit, “I’ll be in here a while. If you want to hear the radio you’ll have to come in here too.”

  Once inside, I turned up the radio to make sure Willie couldn’t hear us. I took considerable time explaining all the details to Winnie and her part in the plan. She got all excited. I put my finger to my lips to caution her. “Don’t let on we got anything up our sleeve.”

  While we waited to hear Daisy coming back, Willie had a hard time keeping his eyes open. Jerked awake, he sat up bolt upright and asked me to make him a cup of coffee, which I did.

  About an hour later, here comes the sound of Daisy’s boat heading home. I don’t know who was the most excited, me or Winnie, but I’m proud to say we both kept our cool.

  Daisy spent considerable time under the house, messing with the boats, but finally she came up the gangplank. I met her at the door, and, sure enough, she had a great big fish. “Halibut,” she said. She was dripping wet. “Did more bailin’ than fishin’.”

  We left the gangplank down. “Any news?” she asked.

  I shook my head and followed her into the kitchen. She put the halibut in the sink and poured herself a cup of coffee. “You ready?”

  I nodded.

  I left Daisy drinking the coffee. When she came out the kitchen, she looked at Winnie, and Winnie nodded slightly. They were both ready to put our plan into action.