Portlandtown: A Tale of the Oregon Wyldes Read Online Free Page B

of the Alberta, watching Astoria fade in the distance. As the last hillside home vanished from sight, he felt a weight lift from his heart. It was as if the top button of his shirt had loosened, his belt unbuckled, and his boots kicked off—all at the same time. He felt good, relaxed, happy.
    Joseph leaned on the rail next to his father-in-law.
    “You’ll be back.”
    The marshal shook his head. “No, I don’t think I will. But it’s all right. I should have done this a long time ago.”
    Joseph smiled. “I’m glad to hear you say that.”
    “So am I.”
    The two men stood silently at the rail for a time, enjoying the sun on their faces, the brisk air, and the sound of the river churning in the wake of the boat.
    *   *   *
    Were you to ask any resident of Astoria about May 17, 1887, he or she would have told you it was lovely. The sun shone brightly, hinting at the drier-than-usual summer to come. The fishing was excellent, the best it’d been in weeks. The Second Bank of Astoria opened for business, founded largely on “amber” gold. In short, it was a good day to be in Astoria.
    It was a good day for all but one longtime resident who suddenly felt a huge weight fall upon him without warning. This man, a fellow of barely seventeen years, had never known such a feeling, had never felt such anxiety. With it came a memory of a day long since buried in the deep recesses of his mind.
    And he remembered everything.

 
    2
    The Port of Portland was the busiest in the Pacific Northwest, second only to San Francisco in overall West Coast water traffic. For a time, it seemed Seattle with its expansive sound and natural shipping lanes would become the region’s capital of commerce, but the discovery of vast firestone deposits in western and central Oregon had changed everything. The city’s inland location and ready access to the deep waters of the Columbia River assured the amber rush would run through Portland.
    Most of Portland’s waterfront property was not on the great river proper but rather on the banks of a prime tributary, the Willamette. A tri-city vote in 1861 had folded East Portland and Albina into the city, stretching it across the Willamette and south to the Tualatin River. The friendly annexation, coupled with the surge of immigrants and fortune seekers, helped Portland quadruple its population in less than twenty years. By 1887, nearly sixty thousand souls claimed the title “Portlandian,” many of whom saw their new home for the first time from the water.
    In the 1870s, the arrival of a large steamship would have been an event most residents turned out to see, but by the end of the next decade, dozens of the big steamers were arriving every week. Smaller, passenger stern- and paddlewheel steamers coming from all points on the Columbia docked at the waterfront by the hour. The metropolitan harbor could accommodate a dozen riverboats and on many days its berths were filled to capacity with eager souls searching for a new life in the Northwest.
    The irony was that passengers usually found it drier while on the water. The downtown streets regularly flooded during the spring thaw and when not swamped offered only muddy passage around the larger puddles. The steam-powered streetcars that were supposed to alleviate the public’s transportation woes ground to a halt when the water reached its normal April levels and sometimes stayed stuck in the mud until June. Newer construction—of which there was plenty—required raised sidewalks by city ordinance, although whether a few feet of dry would be helpful was hotly debated among longtime residents. In truth, the locals liked it wet. Most owned small dories or canoes for the wettest days and had little trouble navigating the raised scaffolding and planks that stretched across the streets like so many makeshift bridges. It was said that all one needed to survive the spring in Portland was a raincoat and a good sense of balance.
    Kate Wylde was more than