The Whistling Season Page 31

  "I have to say, kudos to Damon and his pernicious scrap-book," Morrie or Morgan or some nominal combination in between managed to husk out. By now he was thinking at top speed, I could tell. I blew my nose and wiped my eyes and waited. At least he still was sitting there instead of making a dash for his saddle horse and the Westwater train depot.

  He did, however, cut another glance toward the doorway where Brose Turley only minutes ago had reluctantly left our lives behind. "We came through by the skin of our teeth once already today, Paul. Let us not be precipitous now just because we have the blood left to do it with." I braced. He was reaching his highest pedagogical tone of voice.

  Looking intently at me, Morrie put up three fingers and began counting off on them.

  "Number one. I recognize that I have not been able to entirely shed the identity of Morgan Llewellyn, although Morris Morgan has been a marked improvement in quite a few respects."

  I couldn't quibble with any of that, so I nodded.

  He moved on to finger number two. "By some manner of calculation that ought to be beyond anyone of your years, you have thoroughly figured out who I am."

  I nodded harder.

  The final finger, he paused over.

  "Then, inevitably, there is Rose. Far be it for me to see into that attractive head of hers. But from what you say, for reasons of her own she is not breathing my real name even to you." He glanced at me for confirmation and I gave it with body English.

  That third finger, he folded down. Leaving the two, side by side, there in the air. "Given our relatively few numbers, isn't it possible that we might negotiate our way out of this uncomfortable situation?"

  "Not until I know the whole thing. From the start."

  Morrie sat there so long and so still that I was afraid I had messed up entirely. Then he rose from his chair, trailing his fingertips across the desk as he stepped away from it. "That's what I'd say in your place," he granted with a slight slant of smile. There at the front of the classroom, he walked the tight little turn of route, back and forth, where his flights of inspiration had so often taken off from. I waited, achingly hoping he would reach for the last resort of the guilty, the truth. When he began, "The prospect of that much money turned the three of us as crooked as a dog's hind leg," I heard the words with a strange sense of relief.

  As he talked on, chimes of midnight out of a tale by Poe could not have resounded more fully in me. "My brother was a thing of beauty in the ring," Morrie, or rather Morgan, said at the outset. Quick as greased lightning, from the sound of it, and a natural left-hander who trained to fight as a righty. Sometime in the course of a bout he would suddenly shift stance and out of nowhere would sail a wicked left hook. It was generally good night for Casper's opponent after that. Twenty knockouts in twenty-two bouts, and capping off his fights that way—"Sports-writers fell all over themselves to be the first to dub him 'the Capper.'" Morrie shook his head as he paced the schoolroom floor. "Casper was the kind of brother I wouldn't have traded the world for, or wanted any more of. On the street, people could scarcely tell the pair of us apart, the fancy-dan boxer and the dandified manager. There were times, though, when the reflection in the mirror was our only resemblance." As he said that, I guiltily thought of some of my times with Damon.

  Making the acquaintance of Rose was one of those cloudy times between brothers. "Casper could have had his pick of swooning socialites." From the slight smile on Morrie, he seemed to be reviewing the parade of them. "But no, he has to walk off a case of nerves before the Swenson fight in Minneapolis, and there's Rose on her day off. Down from Lowry Hill, strolling the shore of Lake of the Isles, tossing rusk to the ducks.

  "It was love at first wink" His pacing slowed thoughtfully "You can guess the rest. I tried to cool down Casper with older-brother advice—I sounded as creaky as Polonius, even to myself—but in no time he and Rose were holding hands in front of a justice of the peace." He cut a sharp look at me. "Please believe me, Paul, I had nothing against Rose herself. She was delightful. Too delightful for a man to keep his mind entirely on becoming lightweight champion of the world, was my concern. But I soon came around from that. In every way but one, she was good for Casper."

  "The perdition part?"

  That stopped him in his tracks. "One might say so," he said drily, "and I gather Rose already has. So, yes, I am afraid extravagance was our middle name there for awhile. She and he went through money as if it came with the morning newspaper. I have never been able to find the handle on a dollar myself. It didn't matter as long as the purses kept growing whde Casper fought his way up."

  Then came the top rung. Casper defeating the over-the-hill old champion. Setting up the fight between the top-ranked lightweight boxers in the world, Casper Llewellyn versus Ned Wolger. The fixed fight.

  "It was Casper's brainstorm, to throw the bout to Wolger the first time they fought. And then wipe the floor with him in the rematch." Morrie wore a speculative expression. "Oh, we thought we knew the risk. Wolger was no slouch. But Casper never doubted for a moment he could handle him, in any fight that was on the level. The oddsmakers were of the same mind. Casper was a three-to-one favorite when we started getting our bets down. Rose achieved most of that with a trip back to Minneapolis"—the reminiscent little smile twitched on him again—"where every housekeeper on Lowry Hill placed money on Wolger for us."

  Morrie paced back and forth. "Casper put up enough of a scrap to make it look good." One-Punch Milliron could barely even imagine such a surplus of fistfighting prowess. I listened with my every pore. "We collected the payoffs on our bets, hand over fist," Morrie related. "I began making noise to the newspapers about the public's burning desire to see a rematch, as a good fight manager does. We seemed to be home free." His voice grew tight, reined in hard. "The one thing we didn't count on was how touchy the gambling mob turned out to be. They had no proof the fight was thrown, but they decided suspicions would do. And so they set out to make an example of Casper."

  "You and Rose, though," I whispered. "How'd you get away?"

  He smoothed the good cloth of his shirt and finicked with his sleeve garters again. "Haberdashery saved our lives, would you believe." His constrained telling of it has stayed with me with the crazy-quilt logic of a dream.

  The money burning a hole in her pocket, Rose is at a dress fitting; for some reason I see her in sky-blue silk.

  Bird of the same feather, Morrie simultaneously visits his tailor.

  Freshly outfitted and doubtless whistling, Rose alights home and finds the place in shambles, with Casper conspicuously missing. Frantic, she rings up the tailor shop, catching Morrie as he is about to stroll out the door.

  They duck for cover, bombarding the police and newspapers with telephone calls but refusing to show themselves; in Chicago, according to Morrie, the underworld and civic sentinels tend to merge. That precaution proves necessary; in no time, the mobsters take the Capper for his long walk, his last ever, off the short pier.

  Morrie broke in on himself. "Paul? Do you know the saying about how an imminent hanging wonderfully concentrates a person's mind? Casper's fate had that effect on Rose and me. We decided we had to stick together, come what may."

  Knowing they are running for their lives now, they hop a boxcar out of town. To Minneapolis, where sanctuary awaited, under the wings of those housekeeping staffs of Lowry Hill.

  "Rose was a whiz at catching on at her old haunts there," Morrie concluded the tale and sank into the chair at his desk as if having reached the end of a journey, "but we knew it would be healthier to have much more distance between us and Chicago. Montana seemed to abound in distance." He shrugged. "I believe you know the rest from 'Can't Cook But Doesn't Bite.'"

  "You changed your name. Why didn't Rose?"

  "She absolutely would not." He flung up a hand in exasperation. "Casper had insurance. If matters were ever to settle down and she could prove her identity, she might be able to claim it. I repeatedly pointed out to her that the entire
gambling mob and probably half the Chicago police department would need to go blind, deaf, or deceased for that to happen, but you know how Rose can be."

  "The bezzle. What happened to that?"

  "The—? Ah, the loot from embezzlement, you mean. Top mark for looking to the root." He gazed into space, contemplating my choice of word. "Technically, however, what Casper and Rose and I were engaged in does not qualify as embezzlement, I believe. 'Theft' probably says it better. A charge of fraudulence could be thrown in, no doubt. Felonious conspiracy might be on the list in some jurisdictions."

  If the list was any longer, he would need to count off on his fingers again. My leaden stare must have finally registered on him. He sighed.

  "What's left of the money is moldering in a biscuit tin somewhere. Casper did not trust banks. When he took over the swag, to call it that, because Rose and I were spending it like water, we lost sight of it for good." Morrie sat forward suddenly. "You must understand. The money was merely what might be called the proximate cause of our scheme. Oh, we enjoyed what you call 'the perdition part,' no mistake. But Casper and Rose and I all three mostly liked the plan for its own sake." He pressed his palms against the top of his desk, firming himself to say the rest of it. "When I'm tripping over myself like this it may not sound like it, but we meant no harm to anyone who didn't willingly put that money at risk. The prizefight game draws gamblers as syrup draws flies." He paused as if thinking back. "The prizefight game. I suppose we got carried away with that last word."

  The acid of boredom. I sat there trying to comprehend how it had eaten into those three people, so near the tiptop of everything. Maybe a nightly jolt of dreams was no bad thing.

  Shadows had lengthened across the worn wood of the schoolroom floor and the window smithereens. Morrie put his hands to his temples and rubbed there as if to erase whatever of this he could. "It's late," he said, barely hearable. "Your father will be coming looking for you."

  "Let him." I had to finish this, all the way. "Morrie?" I made myself look at him, although I was seeing beyond to Oliver Milliron and the world he thought he was gaining in the person of Rose. "I have to tell."

  "You don't at all."

  "You and Rose—"

  "—have done what a man and a woman do. That's so. Nights are long here." His eyes steadied on mine. "But we are not—what you might dunk, together. Paul, listen to me. Rose is genuine in the feelings she has for your father. She's made me know that. Hard as it is to admit, that's a match I have lost, and on the level."

  That fact seemed to make him restless. The next thing I knew, he was on his feet and plucking up a piece of chalk from the blackboard. Only his nerves had anything to say with it, though, as he jiggled the stick of chalk in a one-handed juggle whde he paced the front of the room.

  "Let us consider one possible outcome," he mused out loud. "If you were to keep silent, matrimony would take its course and your father and Rose would gain the considerable pleasure of each other's company unto eternity. And Toby and Damon and you would have a mother." He gave the wan smile once again. "Although the Milliron household might have to quit paying a housekeeper and hire a cook." The chalk took a higher hop in his hand, was caught and clenched. Morrie went perfectly still as he looked at me over his gripping hand. "As for me, I would finish up the school year and move on."

  I said the hardest thing I ever had. "I—I think that's a good idea."

  He exhaled, gave me the kind of nod he did when I got a difficult conjugation right, and deposited the chalk—in pieces now—at the blackboard. Before he could move from there I called out:

  "There's one thing more."

  Slowly Morrie turned around to me, the lightning-rod glint in his eyes. "I swear, you've caught something from reading Caesar's tactics."

  "I want you to give Rose away. At their wedding."

  His mouth came open, but before he could manage words I said:

  "And you have to mean it."

  ***

  AND SO, AS ROSE WOULD HAVE SAID. WHAT STAYS AND WHAT goes. Doctors who work in the mind may offer explanations why certain watershed events do not ever leave us—a first love, death of a parent, moving away from home. Nothing explains the other molecules of time that endure. At the end of that afternoon, tuckered out yet vibrant with purpose, I rode away from the schoolhouse more than half aware that I was traveling into the next chapter of the life of us all.

  Where Rose and Father very soon stood in front of a minister and spoke the vows that lasted them the rest of their lives.

  Where Morrie kept his promise and gave Rose away and then in that whirl-about way of his was gone from us for good, or better just say forever; Tasmania, if the telegram from a Pacific dock a few months later could be believed.

  Where, far-fetched as it then seemed for young centaurs like us, in the fullness of time Damon and I and even Toby would end up tamed and married, napkined and patriarchal.

  Those stand like continental divides in my rumpled mind, yet no more clearly than this. That day, I rode down through The Cut and out onto the section-fine road across Marias Coulee still trying to gather myself, to put on the face—the one that has lasted to this day—behind which I could seal away Rose's past, and Morrie's, for the sake of the next of life for all concerned. The sky was bare blue; it would be the best possible night to say good-bye to the comet. There was just enough wind to muss Joker's mane now and then. I let Joker have his head most of the way home, until suddenly the reins came alive in my hand and I headed him at a gallop out into the field between Rose's homestead and our own. At the spot where I could see to the pothole pond, I pulled up. There at the Lake District, a flurry had replaced the stillness of the water. A commotion of wings, a dapple of white against the prairie. The swans had come in their seasonal visit. Beautiful as anything, I could hear their whistling.

  ***

  EVEN WHEN IT STANDS VACANT THE PAST IS NEVER EMPTY. In these last minutes here, in this house with its kitchen doorway that overheard so many whispered confidences, with its calendar that holds onto Octobers forever, something has found its way into a corner of my mind. A finding, in more ways than one. For it has come to me, amid the many jogs of memory today, that the contingency authority that we so feared from school inspector Harry Taggart, back then, still exists. I cannot even guess how far back from modern times it was last used, but there it stands, I am sure of it, obscurely tucked away in the powers of my office. And so: what if I now were to resort to the political instincts and administrative wiles—and, admittedly and immodestly, the reverse—that have kept me in office all these terms, to freshen up that dusty capacity of the superintendent of public instruction to take charge of a rural school in trouble? And if the appropriations chairman is determined to treat Sputnik like the starter's gun in a race to the school bus, I would have no qualm in issuing a finding that all rural schools in the state thereby are in trouble, would I.

  I must not show my hand too soon. First it will require an enabling clause, a phrase, innocent as a pill with the potion deep in the middle, put before his legislative committee. A housekeeping measure, I will say when I present this; I must make sure to call it that in honor of Rose. Something that can be read more than one way. Regarding contingent appropriation within the purview of the Department of Public Instruction pursuant to the matter of "findings'..., perhaps. Or In matters of appropriation pertaining to rural schools, the Superintendent shall determine.... Some verbose foliage of that sort above the crucial root, so that while the chairman thinks I am fiddling ineffectually with the rural school appropriation funds lingering in my budget, I will be in fact appropriating—yes, taking; glomming onto, in the translation even Morrie approved of—the sole say for the continued existence of those one-room schools. My schools. I can see the slack faces of the chairman and his pack even now, when the matter goes up to the state supreme court and I as the author of the troublesome meaning can quite happily testify that I meant appropriate as the verb of possession.

&nb
sp; Oh, there is still a touch or two needed to perfect this, some apt stretch of the imagination to do full justice to the chairman and his ilk in the political infighting. The dream kind, that goes in for brass knuckles. That, too, will come, I know it will. As surely as night.

  And so my course is clear and my heart is high. When I pull in to Great Falls to the convocation waiting for word from me about the fate of their prairie schools and rise in front of that gathering and toss away my prepared remarks, I can now say to them the best thing in me: that I will sleep on the question appropriately.