Hoarfrost (Whyborne & Griffin Book 6) (7 page)

Whyborne

Our
journey took us upriver from the Yukon delta, using the frozen river as a road.
The sun glowered from low in the south for a brief time, long after we’d set
out. By the end of the first day, I found myself torn between misery and
wonder, two sensations that only increased the farther we traveled.

When on
smooth ice, the sled hissed across it without trouble, but any little bump or
irregularity jolted me to the bone. The wind turned the cold from tolerable to
brutal.

Fortunately,
we had fur robes to spread over us. Griffin and I cocooned ourselves within
them in order to share the heat of our bodies, so wrapped only our eyes showed.
Jack’s long whip cracked past us on occasion, and he shouted commands at the
dogs in one of the native tongues. Within an hour, the muscles of my legs
ached, but the narrow sled gave me little room to move, especially with Griffin
tucked in front of me.

But the
astonishing beauty of the landscape almost made up for the discomfort. Forests
of spruce stood tall beneath their winter burden of snow. Occasionally, a loud
crack like a gunshot would sound from within the trees as frost shattered a
limb. Eagles and ravens milled overhead, and white clad mountains reached
ponderously toward the sky. Each twist and turn of the river revealed some new
vista of startling majesty.

When we
stopped to camp the first night, just after sunset, I found myself so stiff I
could barely crawl out of the sled. Jack noticed and levered me to my feet with
one of his cheerful grins. “What do you think of Alaska, Dr. Whyborne?”

“It’s
beautiful,” I confessed. “Although I’d preferred to have visited in summer.”

“Don’t
be certain.” The blaze of the campfire coming to life painted the side of his
face in gold and gleamed from the pale fur lining his hood. “During the summer,
the mosquitos are so bad your eyes will swell almost closed from the bites.”

“Surely
not.” He must be having a joke at my expense.

“I swear
it’s true. They can kill a caribou calf in particularly bad years.” His
expression shifted into something more wistful. “This is a harsh land, and the
hard men filling it are the least of its dangers. Grizzly bears, cold,
starvation, scurvy, disease, a fall through the ice into freezing water…there
are a thousand ways to die here.”

“So why
come?” I asked.

He
shrugged. “The same reason anyone else comes here. The promise of a better
life.”

“By
which you mean gold.”

“Of
course.”

“But you
stayed,” I pressed. “Griffin said you came here as part of the Klondike stampede
in ‘98. You’ve had plenty of opportunity to leave since, if it isn’t to your
liking.”

“But
there are so many reasons to stay,” he said, his voice taking on a lighter air.
“I’d miss the hospitable climate, the beautiful women, and the abundant supply
of moose. I’m afraid I’ve quite grown fond of the taste, you see.”

I
recognized his tactic only because it was one Griffin used, deflecting my
questions with some foolish answer. But I could hardly demand answers from Jack
as I could Griffin, so I only responded with a laugh and let the subject drop.

We
gathered for dinner around the fire shortly thereafter. Like lunch, it
consisted of bacon and beans, with some tinned tomatoes to prevent scurvy. Even
if I hadn’t been ravenous, I would have made certain to clean my plate of my
portion of the latter. I’d heard of the horrors of the disease, although I’d
always associated it with long ship voyages, and had no wish to encounter them
first hand.

As we
ate, green light flashed across the sky. The flashes grew stronger, and soon a
curtain of brilliant illumination waved above us, obscuring the stars.

“The
Northern Lights,” Christine observed. The greenish light gave her skin a sickly
tint.

“They
are rather beautiful,” Iskander said.

“How are
you adjusting to this cold climate, if I might ask?” I said.

His Egyptian
features looked rather odd juxtaposed with the fur-lined hood, the heavy parka,
and the thick mittens he’d pulled back on as soon as he set his fork aside. “It’s
been a challenge,” he admitted. “But the scientific knowledge at stake gives me
purpose.”

“Well
said,” Christine agreed, giving him a fond look. No doubt she thought his
declaration the height of romance. Jack looked somewhat taken aback, and
Griffin hid his grin behind his coffee.

Due to
the snowy ground, the fire had to be built on top of a platform of green logs.
The heat gradually melted the snow beneath, causing the logs to sink. The
flames began to hiss and die away. “We should get to bed,” Jack said. The
guides had pitched tents, one for themselves, one for Christine, and a third
for the rest of our party. “Make certain not to leave anything leather where
the dogs can get to it. They’ll eat your coat, your boots, their own traces,
and anything else they can get their teeth into.”

I stared
at the milling dogs in alarm. They’d devoured their dinner of dried fish, and
seemed to be settling in for the night, a process conducted with a great deal
of snapping and snarling. I’d never interacted much with dogs—not to say
I bore any dislike for them, only that they were so large and noisy, always
jumping about and barking. I preferred the companionship of quieter creatures. “Will
they? Why?”

He
shrugged. “It’s in their nature. I’ve seen them ignore a lovely dinner of fish
in favor of tearing apart an old rawhide coat some poor cheechako left in their
reach.”

“Cheechako?”

“Tenderfeet.
Newcomers.” Jack grinned at me. “Stay long enough, and you’ll transform into an
old sourdough like me.”

“No
thank you,” I said with a shudder. I’d no desire to linger in this place any
longer than necessary. As I glanced away, I noticed the guides exchanging grins
and rolling their eyes. At my expense, no doubt.

Exhausted
as I was, the thought of sharing a tiny tent with four other men barely
troubled me. Before I could stumble in its direction, however, Griffin said, “I
wish to observe the aurora a bit longer. Walk with me, Whyborne?”

“You’ll
see it plenty,” Jack said from the entrance to the tent. “Soon enough you’ll
barely even notice it anymore.”

“Then I
should appreciate it while the phenomenon is still of interest,” Griffin
replied with a smile. “Don’t worry—we won’t go far.”

Griffin
led the way from the dying fire. The dogs had settled in the snow, tails tucked
over their noses. As we passed, one of them raised her head and let out a soft
whine.

“Shh.”
Griffin scratched her behind the ears. Her tail thumped once, before she
settled in again.

We
pushed through the heavy snow for a short distance, until Griffin stopped at
the edge of the frozen expanse of the river. I shivered in my parka, missing
the fire and our fur robes already.

Still…perhaps
I might do something about the cold. “Hold up a moment,” I said, and crouched
down. I dug through the snow awkwardly with my mittened hands, until I came to
the frozen ground. An old flood had left a number of smooth, round river rocks
exposed on the bank.

“What on
earth are you doing?” Griffin asked in amusement. “Or has the snow already left
you desperate to see bare earth?”

“Not
quite. I’m going to try to warm us up a bit.” I stripped off my mittens and
winced at the instant bite of freezing air against skin. Laying my hands
against the iron-hard ground was even worse, but I ignored the pain. Focusing
my will, I whispered the secret name of fire.

A moment
later, I snatched my hands back with a startled curse. “Ah! I think I burned
myself.”

Griffin
caught my hand and inspected my palm. “No. It just seemed like it from the
difference in temperature.” He reached down and pulled a stone free from the
now-thawed earth. “Brilliant!” He handed it to me. This time it only felt
wonderfully warm against my skin.

We
tucked the heated stones inside our coats, alongside the canteens our bodies
kept from freezing. “We’ll have to find some way of comfortably wearing them in
our boots,” Griffin said with a grin. “A shame we can’t share them with the
rest of the company.”

“Indeed.”
And finding a private moment to heat them again would likely prove difficult.
Still, at the moment I felt warmer than I had all day.

Griffin
leaned against me, his head tilted back to stare at the aurora. “It’s
beautiful, isn’t it?”

I looked
down at him. The ethereal light reflected in his eyes, green on green. “Yes.”

His lips
curved in a smile that told me he knew I hadn’t referred to the aurora. I leaned
down and kissed him gently, his mouth hot as a brand after the cold air.

“This
isn’t going to be easy,” he whispered against my lips. “Being in such close
proximity, unable to touch or hold you…”

“A good
reason to get this business wrapped up as quickly as possible,” I agreed as I
drew back.

“Indeed.”
He regarded me carefully. “How are you feeling?”

“I miss
the sea already,” I confessed.

“And
your sensation of weakness?”

I tilted
my head back. The aurora flickered and danced madly, hints of red and white
creeping into the green. I didn’t want to admit it—hadn’t wanted to admit
it to begin with—but I owed him my honesty. “Still there. As though I’m
on the verge of coming down with some mild illness. But I think I’m
adapting—it’s not as noticeable as before.”

Griffin
caught my mittened hand in his. “I’m sorry, my dear.”

“It isn’t
your fault. If the accursed Endicotts hadn’t forced me to touch the
maelstrom…but they did, and there’s no complaining about it now.” I leaned
against him. “May I ask…how have your nightmares been as of late?”

He’d
waked me once or twice on our voyage, but no more than usual. Still, I couldn’t
help but worry for him. Given the shame he seemed to feel over his fits, I
feared he wouldn’t confess even this lesser form of disturbance if I didn’t ask
about it directly.

“Unchanged,”
he said with a shrug. “Hopefully I won’t wake anyone in the tent with my
thrashing about.”

And with
Jack in the tent with us, I wouldn’t be able to hold Griffin and calm him,
should some worse fit strike. “I’m sure you won’t,” I said firmly. “Did you
manage to tell Iskander about the attack on me?”

“I
whispered the details and our suspicions in his ear while we unpacked the
tinned tomatoes,” he said. “He’ll tell Christine tomorrow. With any luck, we’ll
have no further trouble, but…”

“When
have we ever had luck?” I finished wryly. “But for now, there’s no point
worrying. I think we’re as safe as it’s possible to be, out here in the
wilderness.”

Griffin
turned back the way we’d come, then paused. “May I ask what you think of Jack?”

“I haven’t
spoken with him much, but he seems kind. A bit rough around the edges, but less
so than our guides, certainly.” I related the scene I’d witnessed on the docks,
when Jack had prevented the swindler from taking advantage of the young
prospector. When I finished, Griffin stood in silence for a moment.

“Yes,”
he said slowly. He looked up at me, and his smile returned. “Thank you for
telling me.”

“You’re
welcome. It seemed very much like something you would have done, in his place.
Perhaps you have more in common than looks.”

Griffin’s
smile turned sly. “Oh? Do you mean to say you find him handsome?”

Thank
heavens the hood hid the reddening tips of my ears from him. “No, of course
not.”

His
snort turned to ice in the air. “You’re a terrible liar, my dear.” He stepped
away from me, the snow groaning beneath his weight. “We should return to camp.
Tomorrow will be another long day, and more to come after, until we reach
Hoarfrost.”

“Wonderful,”
I muttered, and followed him to our tent.

Griffin

At one time,
I’d spent many a night sleeping beneath the stars. With the Pinkertons, I’d
played at being a cowpuncher, chased outlaws across the desert of Arizona, and
hunted for fugitives amidst the wilds of the Sierras. But aside from our
Egyptian expedition, I’d spent the last several years sleeping in beds with
firm walls around me.

Still,
my heart thrilled at the prospect of once again testing myself against the
wilderness. The howls of wolves, echoed by the howls of our sled dogs, formed a
familiar music. The fresh-cut spruce boughs beneath my sleeping bag released a
raw scent, which beckoned to some primitive part of my brain. When I awoke the
next morning, I found the condensation from my breath had frozen in the fur
lining of the bag, despite the warmth of my body and several others in the
tent.

The
guides were already seeing to breakfast, and Jack had slipped from the tent.
His movement must have awakened me. Close to the tent flap, Iskander sleepily
pulled on his boots.

I sat up
and reached over to shake Whyborne’s shoulder. “Time for breakfast.”

“Bring
it in here,” he mumbled from the depths of his sleeping bag.

I
grinned and prodded him. “Not likely, lazybones. If you’re not up in five
minutes, I’ll come back and tip you into a snow bank.”

“You’re
a terrible person and I hate you,” he muttered. And didn’t move.

I shook
my head and pulled on my boots, which had remained in my bag with me to keep
them warm and safe from the dogs. I slithered out of the tent to find Jack
crouched by the rebuilt fire, boiling water for coffee. My brother glanced at
me. “Dr. Whyborne doesn’t seem impressed by Alaska,” he remarked.

“As I
said our first night here, Whyborne isn’t one for roughing it.” I set about
opening the cans of beans for our breakfast, and got a nod of thanks from him.

“But you
are?” he guessed.

“It can
be…enlightening, I suppose. To test oneself on such a journey.”

“I think
that’s what brought me here.” Jack set the opened cans in the coals to thaw. “Staying
in one place, putting down roots…well, I would have remained in Missouri, if
that’s what I wanted.”

“You
gave me your coat,” I said. Jack shot me puzzled look, and I clarified. “When
you were adopted off the train in Missouri. You wrapped it around my shoulders
and told me to be good.” The coat had been the last thing I’d possessed of my birth
family, when I stood shivering and alone on the railroad platform.

Jack
laughed. “I’d forgotten. My new mam was angry about it, when the old man
brought me home. Said he might at least have picked one they wouldn’t have to
spend money on.”

I was
all too aware of how fortunate I’d been. Before they’d turned their backs on me
for the crime of loving Whyborne, my adoptive parents treated me as their own
child. But I’d heard stories, rumors, and knew not all of the children from the
orphan trains had been so lucky. “I’m sorry.”

“Water
over the dam and all that.” Jack poked at the beans. “The Hogues had seven
children of their own already, and the biggest farm in the county. Adopting me
was cheaper than hiring another hand. I could have stayed, though. Grown up,
married a local girl, had children of my own.”

Such a
life had almost been mine. Would have been, if I’d not given into temptation.
Or, rather, not been caught doing so. Bending over the milking stool in the
neighbor’s barn while their eldest son fucked me hadn’t been the wisest
decision I could have made.

Or
perhaps it had. Could I really have been happy as a farmer, married to cousin
Ruth or some other woman? I would have liked to have children, but it was hard
to imagine I’d ever have been truly content.

And I’d
never have met Ival, of course. Certainly I couldn’t regret that.

“Why did
you leave?” I asked.

Jack
snorted. “What, live my whole life ten miles from where the train left me?
Break my back farming, always at the mercy of the next hailstorm or drought?
See the same faces every day for years on end? I knew early on it wasn’t for
me.” His eyes warmed with memory. “A circus came by one spring. Half the town
was ecstatic for some entertainment, and the other half thought they were the
devil’s own come to tempt us. As for me, I loved it—the color, the
sounds, the people. When they left, I went with them.”

“You
never mentioned this in your letters.” I poured coffee for us both. “Only that
you’d traveled a great deal.”

“I did.
I left the circus eventually. Wandered around the west for a time. I’d stay in
a town for a year, or six months, then find myself on the move again. When word
came of the strike on the Klondike, I thought, ‘why not?’” Jack shifted one of
the cans of beans about in the coals. “I worked in Skagway for a while, until I
managed to run afoul of Soapy Smith. I won’t say I was sorry to hear when he
was gunned down. From there, I went to Dawson, and then to St. Michael. I’d
been thinking about leaving Alaska altogether when I met Nicholas. He wanted to
look for gold farther north, so I joined him.” Jack bit his lip, staring for a
moment at the coals. “He has a way of making a man believe in himself. Believe
he’s meant for more in this world than just drifting through it.”

“I look
forward to meeting him,” I said.

“I can’t
wait to introduce you.” Jack’s expression remained melancholy, though. “Maybe
you’ll see things differently, after talking to him.”

I wanted
to ask what things, but something about his look made me think I wouldn’t get a
straight answer. I only said, “He’ll make a sourdough out of me, will he?”

“Dear
heavens, don’t even joke about such a thing,” Whyborne said. He slumped down on
the rough-hewn log between us. The bright green light of the aurora emphasized
the dark shadows beneath his eyes, and made the puce scarf about his neck look
even more horrid, if possible. “Even Egypt was preferable to this wretched
place.”

Jack’s
mouth tightened. “Don’t worry, Dr. Whyborne. I’m sure it will be worth it in
the end.”

Jack
rose to his feet and left to check on the dogs. “I wish I was so certain,”
Whyborne muttered. “Is the coffee ready?”

I passed
a cup to him, but my attention remained on my brother. Why did he seem upset at
Whyborne’s comment? Did he feel Whyborne insulted his home? Or did he simply
look at Whyborne and see a soft scholar, the pampered son of a rich man? A
complainer who moped about while everyone else did the hard work?

I hoped
not. I wanted them to like one another. And perhaps our time on the trail would
give Jack the chance to see past any superficial assumptions he might have
made.