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I believe my second son was conceived one night on the Pullman car that took us back to Missouri, I
named him Gordon, for reasons I could never tell anyone, and also gave him Doc's Christian name
Charles.
Last year, in 1951, Charles Gordon Coleman was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics. He changed the
world, this world, I hope for the better.
Other interesting things happened between his birth and his journey to Stockholm.
We bought acreage in Rolla and turned it into a fairly successful farm, with various crops rotating through
the seasons-what they call a truck farm now. Chuck is still on the farm today, a white-bearded patriarch.
My Daniel had no patience for it, and after a year went off to sea with the merchant marine.
He joined the navy in World War I and perished when his ship was torpedoed by a German submarine.
Strange to write those words. He also died in a gunfight in Dawson City. Both deaths were real, and the
first one hurt more than the second.
I taught high school in Rolla for twenty years, part-time, as I was making more money in my second
career, writing pulp fiction. I wrote at least one story a week, under a variety of male
pseudonyms-westerns, science fiction, mysteries-and the occasional romance, under my own false name,
Rosa Coleman.
That figured in one of the strangest meetings of my life. I was shopping in Rolla in the summer of 1905,
and sat down on a park bench to rest and cool off. A large man sat down on the other end of the bench.
"Rosa Coleman," he said, and I looked up, expecting one of my readers. There were several such in
Rolla. His face seemed vaguely familiar, but he wasn't a local.
He gave me a mysterious smile. "Or is it Rosa Tollivet?"
I stood and fought the impulse to flee. "Who are you?"
"We were never formally introduced. My name is William Sizemore. Late of the Pinkerton agency." Of
course. The last time I'd seen him, he was lying on the floor, bleeding, only the whites of his eyes
showing.
"I'll... I'm glad to see that you're alive." He rubbed the back of his head. "Was it your son who slugged
me?" I nodded. "Pretty good job."
"You've been tracking us for seven years?"
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"Hardly." He took off his hat and mopped his forehead, "I caught up with you in Wrangell in ninety-eight
on your way back to the States." All I could do was look at him.
"You should never have pawned the revolver. Along the bottom of the barrel, it was stamped 'Property
of the Pinkerton Agency,' and had an identification number. I was fired for not having reported it lost-but
I was about to quit anyhow.
"I didn't like your husband, the first one, and suspected thatyour story was the true version. I decided to
lie-protecting myself as well as you-and telegraphed him that you had disappeared during a bad storm the
previous winter, and were missing and presumed dead. It was child's play to steal a missing-persons form
from the Dodge City Police Department. Your son was presumably headed for the Philippines.
"I followed your trail to Seattle, and found people who remembered you as the lone woman on the
Russian freighter. I was headed for Skagway when the troubles there closed it, and found that the ship
was returning.
"I waited in Wrangell, pretty well disguised as a scruffy prospector. Haggled for supplies with your son
and his friend, and then followed them to a bar when you and Doc showed up. We talked for awhile and
I got your cover story.
"Followed you back to Seattle and saw the marriage announcement. Left you alone then, biding my time
in Philadelphia, until now."
"What's happened now?"
"Edward remarried early this year. But it didn't last." He unrolled the newspaper he was holding, a
week-oldPhiladelphia Inquirer. There was a front-page story,"millionaire lawyer found dead -Police
suspect Young Wife in Poisoning."
"She's actually admitted to it," he said. "Even if she doesn't go to jail, she won't get a penny of his fortune.
I think it's time for you to reappear."
"As his long-lost wife? I'm not married to him anymore."
"No one in Philadelphia knows that but me. And for ten percent, I'll never tell."
"Ten percent of how much?"
"More than two million dollars."
Of course I considered it, if just for a few moments. I tried to express my feelings to Mr. Sizemore.
"Even if the millions came with no strings attached, I would hesitate."
"That's hard to believe."
"I've had millions. It was the most miserable time of my life."
"But you wouldreally have them now! You could buy anything for yourself and your family."
"Not without explaining where the money came from."
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"A rich relative died."
"And if anyone-like Edward's nasty sister!-was curious and did the slightest investigation, it would come
out that I was married to two men, and defrauded Edward's relatives out of the money. I'd lose the
money and go to prison."
"I think a good lawyer who knew the true circumstances could prevent both."
"To the shame, and perhaps loss, of my actual family."
He shook his head. "Consider this. The only link to your actual past is me. I would never tell anyone the
truth, because my ten percent would look like extortion, then."
What is it now,I thought. But he hadn't threatened to expose me.
He handed me a business card. "This is too much, too fast for you. Think it over. I'll be at the Hotel
Central for a week. Please reconsider." He turned to go.
"Mr. Sizemore. You've gone to considerable expense to come out here. Let me reimburse-"
"You have even less money than I," he said with a quaver in his voice that might have been anger. Then
he walked out of my life.
I read through the Philadelphia paper and did feel a pang at the announcements and advertisements. The
opera, fine restaurants, the new moving pictures and automobiles. I lazily considered a scenario where I
would go to Philadelphia and collect the money, and then a few months later, meet a nice widower from
Missouri; fall in love with him and marry, and we would live wealthily ever after. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]