He took the streetcar back to the hotel, and spent the rest of that day in his room, trying to think what to do next. A letter from his mother had been waiting for him when he checked in, and it still lay, unopened, on the marble-topped washstand. He cradled the aching stump of his arm gingerly in his right hand, gazed out his window into a gloomy drizzle, and tried very hard not to wish he had died of his wound in the field hospital outside Jerusalem.
Now, his third day in Seattle, Frank Parrish spread the contents of his wallet on the bedside table and contemplated them. It was a bit like looking over your ammunition and wondering if you had enough to make the run up the hill. He had grown to hate loading his clip, checking the bolt-action on his rifle. The Lee-Enfield was supposed to be his pride; but the sight of the rounds, cold and hard and lethal, called up images of torn flesh, staring eyes, slack lips, the tortured postures of the dead. Sometimes it had been all he could do to swallow his reluctance, to put those rounds into the clip, to accept that he was, when ordered to do it, going to fire his rifle at living human beings.
He made an impatient sound in his throat. He had to stop thinking of all that. The issue this morning was money.
Frank had left college to join the war, too impatient to wait for his own country to declare. At the time it had seemed a grand and adventurous thing to do. The British uniforms, the clipped accents of the officers, the romance of the cavalry had drawn him away from classrooms and lectures and boyish pursuits. The King’s army had been pleased to commission a man who knew both engineering and horses. He did real engineering in the King’s army, building bridges and throwing down roads. He had loved the work until he saw an actual battle.
Nothing like blood and guts—literally—to dim the glories of war.
He tossed his emptied wallet aside, and picked up his mother’s letter. He pictured her bent over the kitchen table, writing by the light of a kerosene lamp while his father tamped his pipe and stared into the fireplace. He had postponed writing to them, hoping to send them good news of his fine new job. Now he had nothing to say.
Frank felt a wave of sorrow for his parents, but he couldn’t go home jobless and broke. He couldn’t face seeing Elizabeth, meeting his old friends. He gazed down at what remained of his left arm. The worst of it all was knowing that it was his own fault. A stupid waste. With a shudder of loathing, he drew his sleeve down and tucked it into his waistband.
He scooped up his money, poured it back into his wallet, and went to stand beside the window. The morning sun had retreated behind a layer of clouds, and the city streets looked cold and unfriendly. They had barely dried from the day before, and now it looked as if there would be more rain. Frank turned back to the bureau for the list of potential employers he had written out. His arm began to ache again, despite the generous shots of whisky the sad-faced barmaid had served him.
A diffident knock on the door came just as he reached for the list. He called, “Come,” and the door opened, barely enough for him to see the apologetic face of the Chinese maid.
“Oh, sorry, sir.” Her voice was high and thin, birdlike. “I thought you were out. I’ll come back later.”
“No,” he said, more sharply than he intended. The pain always made him snappish. He drew himself up, and tried to speak more gently. “No, it’s all right. Come in.”
She was a pitiful thing, with a child’s body and huge eyes with dark circles beneath them. She came in, carrying folded sheets over her arm, and it seemed to Frank her step was unsteady. He dipped a quarter out of his wallet and laid it on his pillow before he sidled past her into the hall, shouldering into his coat as he went.
He was halfway down the corridor before he realized he had left his list on the bureau. He muttered, “Hell,” but he didn’t turn back. The list was more or less arbitrary in any case. He had simply written down every possibility he could find in the slender Seattle city directory.
He strode out of the hotel and turned toward the port. If Alaska Steamship had no job for him, perhaps Pacific Coast would, or the Shipping Board. Failing those, he would just knock on the doors of likely places and see what turned up.
At the Good Eats Cafeteria at First and Cherry, Frank spent a dollar on a lunch of chowder and bread. As he ate, he cast his eye over a copy of the
Seattle Daily Times
someone had left on the table. The headline blared, in two-inch type, that unemployment was higher than ever. Frank turned the paper over and shoved it away.
As he paid his bill, the cashier smiled at him. She was rather pretty, in that way very young girls are, with pink skin and clear eyes, but her hands were familiar to him, broad and work-hardened, like those of the country girls of Montana. He touched his cap to her, and she blushed. He stepped out of the café and turned left.
“Hey!” came a voice somewhere behind him.
Frank started off down the street, assuming the call was for someone else.
“Hey!” There was a laugh in the voice this time, and it seemed vaguely familiar. “Cowboy! Is that really you?”
Frank stopped, and turned slowly. Cowboy was his army nickname. He hadn’t expected to hear it ever again.
A young man bounded easily across the street toward him, dodging a truck farmer pushing a wheelbarrow full of vegetables. “Cowboy!” he exclaimed again.
Frank, repressing an urge to slip away into the crowd, waited where he was on the sidewalk. When his old comrade reached him, he drawled, “Benedict. Completely forgot you were from Seattle.”
Preston Benedict thrust out his hand, exclaiming, “I’ll be damned!” They shook, and Benedict said gaily, “I was sure those quacks had killed you!”
“Not quite.” Frank took back his hand, and gazed, narrow-eyed, at Preston Benedict. He didn’t look like any other veteran of his acquaintance. His color was high, his eyes clear and untroubled. His fair hair sprang vigorously from his forehead. He made Frank feel old and used-up.
“Come on,” Benedict said, with a wave of his hand. “Let’s have a drink. You can tell me all about it.” He put his left hand on Frank’s back, as if to guide him. The hand slid across the back of his greatcoat and encountered the empty left sleeve.
Benedict dropped his arm and stared at the empty sleeve tucked into Frank’s pocket. “Damn, Cowboy! Lousy luck. You lost it after all.”
Frank’s jaw ached, and he realized he had ground his teeth together. He said only, “Yes,” but hot, sudden pain flared through him.
Benedict gripped his good arm. “Come on. We need a drink. I know a place.”
A drink sounded better than ever to Frank, but he shook his head. “Can’t,” he said. With care, he disengaged his arm from Benedict’s hand. It wasn’t easy. Preston Benedict’s fingers were strong.
“Why not?” Benedict demanded.
Frank took a half step away, making a space between them. “Appointment,” he said. “I’m looking for work.”
Benedict’s smile widened, and he clapped Frank’s good shoulder. “As am I, old man! As am I. We can compare notes. What kind of work are you hoping to do?”
Frank made a vague gesture. “Engineering,” he said. “Came out to work with Alaska Steamship, but the strike . . . Position is gone.”
Benedict clicked his tongue. “That’s rotten, Cowboy.”
Frank shrugged.
Benedict chuckled. “Talkative as always, I see,” he said. His blue eyes sparkled, and his smile was easy and confident. Frank wondered why he disliked this man. He always had, even when they were both under fire out in the East.
“Listen, old man,” Benedict said. “I’ll let you get on with it, if you insist. But you must come up to the house, have dinner. Where are you staying?”
“Alexis. A couple more days, anyway.”
“Good hotel! Excellent. I’ll send the car. Six o’clock?”
“Thanks, but I don’t think—”
Benedict clapped his shoulder again. “No arguments, now! You must meet the mater and pater, tell them what heroes we both are.” His grin was as guileless as a boy’s. “Car at six!” He was gone, dashing back across the busy street, before Frank could think of a way to refuse.
He chided himself as he walked on. It was nice of Benedict to pretend they were friends. By the time they met, Frank was already disillusioned, soured on the war. He had made a few friends in Allenby’s army, but most of those fellows had died in Turkey. He was disinclined to become attached to anyone else, and he didn’t share Benedict’s enthusiasm for all of it—the shooting and the bloody charges and the vanquishing of the enemy. He’d been in the field hospital when Benedict came back from Jerusalem, and by the time his first, brutal surgery was over, Benedict had shipped out.
Frank remembered now hearing that Preston Benedict was the youngest son of a wealthy Seattle family. He wished he had found a way to escape the dinner invitation, kind though it might be. He didn’t look forward to suffering through a formal dinner, trying to be polite to well-bred strangers. Small talk was, as Preston had reminded him, not one of his skills.
Preston congratulated himself as he strolled up Western Avenue, where coolies and Indians labored on the slippery wooden docks, hauling who-knew-what back and forth, gibbering their weird languages at one another. Mother would be pleased when he brought home a war buddy, and a superior officer at that. Father would like Parrish. Everyone did. His brother Dick should be glad to meet another man who had been in the show. Too bad about the arm, but there was something glamorous about a wounded war hero. It felt like a lucky day. Maybe Margot would be stuck at the hospital and miss dinner entirely. That would be a bonus.
The sapphire, hanging on its silver chain beneath his shirt, felt cool and heavy against his chest. He touched it with his palm, thinking he should decide soon where he wanted to work, some office where his war record and the Benedict name would command respect. He would choose the right firm, sit down with the owner, settle his future.
He came to a bench facing the bay, and threw himself down with his legs outstretched. The clouds had cleared, and the wintry sun shone on the Olympics rising in their snowy majesty beyond the water. Relaxing was pleasant, but, he reminded himself, he’d been idle for an entire month. That was long enough, surely, for a man to recover from his war experience.
The Near East had been a nasty place to spend his war at first. Allenby’s people acted like snobs, looking down their noses at the Yanks, making officers like him do the scut work. He’d had to run back and forth along the supply lines, carrying other people’s gear as if he was no better than a coolie.
But then, when the battle ebbed in the hills of Judea, he and Carter had marched into Jerusalem with Allenby’s forces, and everything changed.
He closed his eyes for a moment against the weak sunshine. A scuffle of feet on the sidewalk made him open them again.
A little gaggle of boys had gathered around him. There were three of them, the usual street urchins with ragged hair, short pants showing dirty ankles and scuffed boots. Their noses ran, and their faces were dirty. Preston straightened.
Two of the boys backed away, but one held his ground, pointing to the insignia on Preston’s collar. “You’re an officer.” One of his front teeth was missing, and the other was broken, making him lisp.
Preston smiled. “Of course.”
The brat gave him a gap-toothed grin. “Didja kill anybody?”
Another boy, from a safe distance, said, “Yeah, didja? Kill some Huns?”
“I did.” Preston leaned forward, and the boys’ eyes widened. He said, still smiling, “Do you want me to show you how?”
Three open mouths greeted this question. Preston laughed. He put out his left hand and caught the broken-toothed boy by the arm. He spun him around to hold him tightly around the chest, while with his other hand he grasped the kid’s skinny neck. The boy cried out, then choked as Preston’s thumb and forefinger constricted his throat. Preston lifted him off his feet, bending his neck backward. The urchin reeked of mud and grease. He kicked, and pulled at Preston’s arm with desperate hands.
One of the other boys said, “Hey, mister! Don’t hurt Jackie, he’s—”
“That’s captain,” Preston said. He squeezed the boy harder. Jackie’s grimy hands clawed at his sleeve. His kicks grew weaker, his tattered boots flailing harmlessly around Preston’s knees. “This is how you do it, boys.”
“Let him go!” one of the urchins shrieked. Both of them began to cry. Their weeping was openmouthed and ugly, intensifying the mess of dirt and mucus on their faces.
Jackie’s feet twitched, and his fingers scrabbled uselessly against Preston’s arm. He made thick gasping noises that died away when Preston tightened his fingers.
Preston felt the curious attention of the nearest dockworkers turn to him, drawn by the boys’ wailing. He gave the hapless Jackie one last little squeeze, and released him. The boy fell to his knees, scrambling away over the pavement as he sucked in air with noisy gulps. His companions reached for him, and pulled him up between them. Jackie leaned on them, his lips white, his face pinched with panic.
“Hey!” one of the brats sobbed. “Whatcha think you’re doing?”
Preston chuckled as he came to his feet. The boys backed away, clinging to one another in that endearing way of the powerless. The familiarity of it, even with these unworthy adversaries, warmed Preston’s groin.
“Scary, isn’t it?” he said.
One of them cried, “What is?”
Preston let his grin fade and his voice harden. “Killing people. It’s no joke.”
“We wasn’t joking!”
Jackie sniffled, “You hurt me, mister.”
One of the others said, “Captain, Jackie. He’s a captain.”
Preston nodded. “Right you are, lad. Captain.” He touched two fingers to his cap. “You learned something here, boys. See you remember.” He spun on his toes, feeling full of life. Yes, this was a lucky day. A good day to decide what to do next.