Gold Dust (17 page)

“Your pa was a philosopher.”

“Naw. He had a silver mine. That’s almost as bad as gold.”

In company with the Burkes, they passed several other parties who were struggling with their packs, or the mud, or the steepness
of the climb through the canyon. One man’s packhorse had stepped into a quagmire of mud beside the trail. They helped the
man lighten the poor beast’s load so it could free itself. Unlike the recipients of their earlier good deed, this man was
effusively grateful. Katy didn’t embarrass him by a warning to keep his horse strictly to the trail. If he hadn’t known that
basic rule of handling a packhorse when he started this morning, he certainly knew it now.

On the whole, Katy observed, the Klondikers were a sorry lot to be challenging the Alaskan and Canadian wilderness. Some of
the men on the trail looked as if they spent their entire lives behind a desk, or clerking at a store. Others were woefully
ignorant of what they faced—as was the pair who were struggling to ride bicycles up the rocky trail. The cyclists gave up
before the morning was half-gone. Katy and Jonah met them walking their bicycles down the trail. How many others would turn
around before they reached the summit of Chilkoot Pass? Katy wondered. Already they had passed several weary men, their faces
sagging with defeat, who were headed down the trail instead of up. How many others would find that their strength was not
sufficient to meet the demands of the trail, their courage not equal to the wild country beyond the pass?

As for themselves, Katy had no doubt that they would be
among the few who would make it to Dawson. Compared to many of the others along the trail, Jonah was a tower of strength and
competence. He might have even made it without her, Katy admitted to herself. Probably not, but he might have.

They nooned with the Burkes. Dark smudges shadowed Camilla’s eyes. Her husband, who reveled in every small adventure along
the trail, seemed not to notice. Katy offered to help with little Liam and drew Camilla’s laughter when she tied the baby
into a diaper with only one leg hole.

“It takes some practice,” Camilla assured her as she re-pinned the soft cloth. “Before I had Liam, I didn’t know anything
about babies either.”

Back on the trail, Katy let Jonah lead the way, with Patrick Burke and his cart following close behind. The rain had stopped,
and the sun ducked in and out of the clouds, warming the afternoon with a bit of sunshine. Camilla walked beside her husband,
or directly behind him in spots where the trail was too narrow for them both. He was having difficulty with the cart. It sank
into the mud or stuck its wheels between rocks, inspiring Patrick to exhaust his repertoire of Irish curses. But he was determined
to get the load to Sheep Camp, several miles ahead, where he could hire Indian packers to carry the load over the summit and
down the other side to Lake Bennett—the head of navigation for the upper Yukon River.

Katy brought up the rear of their combined parties with Andy and the pack train. One day of decent treatment could not change
the horses from what they were—broken-down nags each with one hoof in an equine grave. They were slow and stumbling, but they
were better than nothing. Katy and company got more than one envious look from parties that passed them on the trail, for
those who had not been able to find horses would be required to make numerous trips to Lake Bennett and back to haul their
supplies—or hire Indian packers,
who were as expensive as horses and could carry a good deal less.

“They’re tryin’ hard,” Andy told Katy as she urged the horses along. “01’ Decker didn’t give ‘em much to eat, even when they
was in the stable. No days of rest, neither. Last trip we made, one of the horses went down on his knees and all the tuggin’
in the world wouldn’t make ‘im git up. Decker just left ‘im there to starve. Didn’t even bother to shoot ‘im. Wouldn’t waste
a bullet, he said.”

“Somebody ought to treat Decker the way he treats his horses,” Katy growled.

“Yes’m. That’s what I thought. He whupped me once ‘cause I gave ‘em too much to eat—least to his way o’ thinkin’ it was too
much. I wouldn’t want’cha thinkin’ that I was working’ for Decker ‘cause I liked ‘im.”

“Why did you work for him?” Katy asked.

“He’s the only one would hire me, ‘cause I’m small, you know, an’ everyone figgered I couldn’t handle these nags on the trail.
But I can, and I need to earn the money to get to Dawson.”

“You’re kind of young to be prospecting for gold.”

At Katy’s smiling comment, Andy drew himself up to his full scrawny height, which wasn’t very impressive. “Gold don’t care
for young or old. Don’t make no difference. And young folks can like bein’ rich just as much as old folks.”

The second horse in line balked as Hunter dashed across the trail in pursuit of some small rodent. Andy swished his switch
above the nag’s rump. It laid back its ears in annoyance, then lurched forward after the lead horse.

“That’s a mighty fine-lookin’ dog you got,” Andy said.

“He’s a wolf, not a dog. He just acts like a dog.”

“A wolf?” Clearly the boy was impressed. “That’s why the horses don’t like ‘im.”

“He won’t hurt them.” Hunter dashed out of the brush beside the trail, tucked himself neatly into a sitting position in front
of Katy, and presented her with a dead mouse.

“Look at that!” Andy exclaimed.

“Thank you, Hunter. Good boy.” Katy took the mouse without a qualm. Hunter had presented her with things far worse. Holding
the offering by the tip of its little tail, she tossed it back to the tongue-lolling wolf. “Yours,” she told him as he caught
it. In one gulp, the mouse was gone.

“I had a dog once,” Andy confided. “She died having puppies.”

“That’s too bad. When was that?”

“A long time ago.”

“Andy, how old are you?”

“Uh… sixteen.”

Katy knew a lie when she heard one. The kid was twelve, she guessed, or a small thirteen.

“Do you have parents?”

“Oh sure. My ma’s a whore in Seattle. She ain’t real good at it, I guess, ‘cause we were dirt-poor all the time I lived with
‘er. I was kinda helpin’ out by, you know, stealin’ things here and there, but Ma said I should go before I got my ass locked
into jail. So I lit out. And when I heard about the gold strike I figgered that was for me. I just hope there’s gold still
left in that river when I manage to earn my way to Dawson.”

“Just don’t decide to steal someone’s grubstake to get there,” Katy warned. “You’re likely to find yourself buried in the
ground instead of digging in it.”

“Naw. I’ve turned honest. My stealin’ days are over.”

They trudged on. Andy entertained Katy with anecdotes from the stews and bordellos of Seattle, and Katy told Andy tales from
her wild days running with her fugitive father. Andy was suitably impressed, especially when Katy related how she’d shot a
hanging rope from around her father’s neck when she was only ten.

The terrain finally broadened out after the long climb. In the midafternoon they reached Camp Pleasant, which straddled the
trail at the very top of the canyon. The place was crowded with argonauts taking advantage of the abundant
water and timber for the night’s camp. They passed it by, heading for Sheep Camp a mile and a half farther up the trail. According
to all the maps Katy had studied, Sheep Camp was the last timbered place to camp below the summit.

Beyond Camp Pleasant they climbed steadily toward timberline. The spruce and aspen got more sparse and smaller. The terrain
was rugged. Hanging valleys notched the steep slopes that rose on either side of the trail. Some had glaciers snaking their
frozen way down the axis of the valley. In others, the arm of the glacier had receded, leaving behind a scoured trail.

The sun had sunk below the mountaintops by the time they reached Sheep Camp. The place boasted two restaurants and a saloon,
all of which were doing a booming business. The available camping spots were also crowded.

“We could go on to Stone House with the Burkes,” Katy told Jonah. Patrick had decided he could get his cart to Stone House,
a landmark gigantic boulder which was a mile farther up the trail, and hire his Indian packers there.

“There’re a few camping spots left here,” Jonah said. “I need to work on my notes. We’ll stop.”

Katy made a face.

“Don’t be so impatient, sister mine.” He grinned mockingly “We’ll make it over the summit tomorrow whether we stop here or
at Stone House. If I don’t get something written, my editor will come after me with a stick.”

“We’ll see you at the top.” Patrick waved a jaunty farewell. Still whistling, he leaned energetically into the harness that
strapped him to his cart. Camilla smiled wanly, adjusted Liam in the sling that rested against her chest, and followed after
her husband.

Katy and Jonah chose a campsite down the hill from Sheep Camp’s busy enterprises. There was nothing peaceful or wilderness-like
about the crowded place. Cookfires smudged the air. Conversation and laughter echoed off the once-silent mountains. A few
minutes passed before Katy realized that
the loudest laughter and conversation came from the campsite next to theirs, and the voices making all the noise were feminine.

She peered through the trees in the direction that Jonah and Andy were already gazing with marked interest. It appeared that
they had walked two full days over rocks and through mud and rain to camp directly next to a passel of whores.

Jonah sat with his back against a tree. The lantern hanging from the branch above him shone sufficiently bright for him to
see clearly the blank page in front of him, but it didn’t cast a similar brightness into his weary brain. Never before had
he experienced so much difficulty putting his thoughts onto paper. He had written while dodging cinders from Milwaukee’s great
fire in 1892; he had written in the middle of the 1894 miners’ riot in Pennsylvania that left eleven people dead; he had written
while huddled in a bombed-out school during Cuba’s revolt against Spain in 1895; he had written while accompanying William
McKinley’s presidential campaign just a year ago in 1896. Now, in the great gold rush of 1897, he had reached the point where
he couldn’t write while comfortably seated under a tree, safe under a peaceful and starry sky.

The task of concentrating was made no easier by the noise coming from the neighboring campsite, which was growing more raucous
as the evening wore on. The ladies next door were doing a rousing business—not surprising given the circumstances. Still,
noise and confusion rarely could distract Jonah when he wrote. The shouts and laughter that disturbed the night were not the
real problem—the real problem had black hair, almond green eyes, and a smile like a mischievous
elf’s. Katy O’Connell was a distraction who could have kept Tolstoi from writing
War and Peace.
She led Jonah’s mind astray by her mere presence. Just now she sat on a log not twenty feet away, mending the cheekstrap of
one of the pack train’s halters. On some other female her plain garments would not have been fetching, but on Katy they were.
She wore a vest of some sort of hide, a soft cambric shirt with a missing top button, and a skirt which, in the absence of
the usual feminine multitude of petticoats, draped over her lap in an enticing outline of her thighs. White, ruffly bloomers
peeked from beneath the hem of her skirt.

Ruffly bloomers and missing buttons—Jonah was a journalist; journalists noticed such details.

Journalists also learned to follow their instincts, and Jonah’s instinct told him he was not going to finish the piece about
Andy tonight. Instead, he would work on another article about Katy. That should be easy enough, since she insisted on flaunting
herself by sitting across the campsite from him. He could write an account of the poker game—the
Record
readers would eat up the story of how she had taken his hundred dollars and gambled it into a small fortune. She had looked
incredible in that red dress. He searched for the words that would describe the wild energy she’d had about her. The emerald
eyes had been alive with animation, the inviting curve of her mouth had combined seduction with just a hint of shyness. Even
her skin had glowed with vitality. Beautiful, yes, but beautiful was inadequate. So was stunning. She had glowed brighter
than the lanterns in that saloon. Every man there had been panting for the chance to play cards with her, and whatever more
intimate games they could persuade her to play, no doubt. He should have been repelled by such behavior, Jonah reflected,
but he couldn’t be anything but entranced. The much-vaunted charm of feminine diffidence and innocence paled before Katy’s
bolder appeal.

Jonah surreptitiously examined his subject as she was now, dressed in wrinkled cambric and deerhide. The red dress had
not been the source of that extraordinary glow that night, he admitted. Katy shone from every pore, even hauling a pack train
through rain and mud or skinning rabbits for their dinner. Even sitting quietly on a log fiddling with a mule’s dirty halter.