Hoarfrost (Whyborne & Griffin Book 6) (10 page)

Whyborne

The
bitterly cold air stung the skin of my face the moment we stepped out of the
comparative warmth of the cabin. Night had fallen, and a gasp escaped me as I
took in the landscape around us.

Fires
blazed everywhere, their low, angry glow lighting up the bellies of great
plumes of smoke rising toward the sky. For a moment, I thought the mining camp
itself to be on fire. But no, the flames appeared to come from the shafts dug
into the banks of the creek.

“What
the devil?” I asked aloud.

Griffin
followed my shocked gaze. “The fires? Jack spoke to me of them, when I asked
him about mining. The permafrost is too hard to dig through. Prospectors burn
fires throughout the night, then excavate the thawed ground the next day. Or
what passes for day here, at least.”

“Oh.” It
sounded unpleasant, backbreaking work.

“Most
won’t even know if they’ve uncovered anything of value until spring,” Griffin
went on. “Until the river runs free of ice, they can’t sluice any gold from the
pay dirt. Imagine an entire winter of such labor, only to find you’re no better
off than when you started.”

“It
sounds abominable,” I agreed. “To travel to such a forsaken place, unsure if
there’s any profit to be had in the trip. Why would anyone do such a thing?”

“Desperation
for some. Gold fever for others.” Griffin shrugged. “Men do strange things in
pursuit of wealth.”

I couldn’t
argue. My own family had practiced everything from sorcery to mating with
creatures from beneath the sea in such pursuit. Compared to that, traveling to
this wilderness seemed rather tame after all.

We
walked over the expanse of frozen black mud and snow to the restaurant. Long
tables sat beneath a canvas tent, packed with bodies. Apparently, this was a
popular place to find a hot meal after a day of digging half-frozen gravel out
of the ground. A prominent sign warned there was to be no swearing, spitting,
or dogs allowed inside.

“Whyborne!”
Christine called. “There you are.”

My face grew
hotter within the protection of my hood. Had Iskander indicated anything to
her? Probably not, but no doubt she’d guessed we’d taken the opportunity to be
intimate.

Griffin,
of course, looked as if we’d merely lingered in the cabin to organize our
belongings. “Christine,” he greeted her. “Iskander.”

“Have
fun, gentlemen?” Christine asked slyly.

God. I’d
never survive this trip.

“Indeed,”
Griffin agreed, swinging a leg over the bench and settling opposite them.

“Do sit
down, Whyborne,” Christine ordered. She gestured to the figures sitting beside
her. “This is Matilda and Sarah. I’m sharing their cabin while we’re in the
camp.”

The heavy
coats and hoods had fooled my eyes. “Ladies,” I said, touching my hood in lieu
of tipping a hat.

“Matilda
and Sarah are miners,” Christine added.

Dear
Lord, even the women here were manlier than me. Both looked as if they could
snap me in half, and I had no doubts as to their ability to dig through the
permafrost. “Dr. Putnam says she will tell us of science,” one said in a thick
Scandinavian accent.

“I’m
sure she will,” I muttered.

“Excuse
me,” said a new voice. “May I join your table?”

A tall,
thin man stood beside an empty spot on our bench, a polite smile on his face. “Reverend
Scarrow, please sit,” Matilda said.

My heart
sank slightly. I had nothing against men of the cloth per se, but in my limited
experience they seemed to talk of nothing but God, and wished me to do the
same. “Felix Scarrow,” he introduced himself. His handshake was strong, the
skin of his palm more callused than I would have expected.

As we
introduced ourselves, our dinners were served: moose steak, beans, and
applesauce. I tucked in immediately, not wishing it to get cold. Griffin
however waited with an expectant air.

“We
thank you for this food, O Lord,” Scarrow intoned, bowing his head over his
meal. Griffin did the same.

I paused
in eating, feeling horribly uncomfortable. It hadn’t even occurred to me to
wait.  Fortunately, Scarrow kept the blessing short, and a moment later
everyone tucked in.

“How
long have you been in Hoarfrost, Reverend?” Griffin asked.

“Since
just before the rivers froze,” Scarrow replied. “This poor flock had no one to
tend them, so I felt it imperative they shouldn’t be left an entire winter
without solace.”

“Revered
Scarrow is doctor also,” Matilda said.

Scarrow
nodded. “I’m no surgeon, but I studied the basics of medical care before
setting out into the wilderness. Our little church here doubles as the
hospital. Right now I have only a few patients, but scurvy hasn’t yet set in. I
brew spruce needle tea to keep it at bay for those here in camp, but some of
the prospectors scattered further along the creeks and rivers don’t know the
trick. Or refuse to use it on the grounds it was discovered by the savage
Indians and thus can’t possibly be of any use to white men.” He smiled
ruefully.

Christine
snorted. “Then let their teeth fall out, I say.”

Scarrow’s
smile became pained. “I endeavor to take a more charitable attitude.”

“Of
course,” Griffin said, smoothing things over. “I’m sure your help and presence
has been of great value to the camp.”

“Thank
you, but I am merely performing the work God has asked of me.” Scarrow paused. “I
must admit, I have an interest in archaeology. Dr. Putnam, I’ve followed your
career with as much attention as the newspapers allow me. Such wondrous
discoveries you made in Egypt!”

“Oh. Ah,
thank you.” Christine visibly braced herself, and I winced. Half the questions
she fielded from the public involved the Biblical enslavement of the Israelites
by the pharaohs, a tale for which no archaeological evidence had yet been
uncovered.

Instead,
Scarrow said, “I’m certain you will make even more fascinating discoveries
here. Would you mind terribly if I come by your site tomorrow, as my duties
permit, and observe your work? I promise not to get in the way.”

Christine
looked pained, as if torn between his praise of her career and her own impulse
to flatly deny his request. “I suppose,” she said at last. “But if your
presence interferes in even the smallest way, you must leave immediately.”

“Of
course.”

The rest
of dinner passed in idle conversation. Scarrow inquired as to the conditions of
the trail, and expressed dismay over our abandonment by the guide Vanya. “He
came to services often,” Scarrow said with a shake of his head. “I would never
have thought it of him. I hope he didn’t come to some harm.”

“It will
probably always be a mystery,” Griffin said mildly. I concentrated on my rather
gamy steak.

“Well,”
Iskander said, putting his fork aside. “Supper was a nice change of pace from
bacon, at any rate. Christine, if you’re at liberty, I wanted to review our
supply lists with you. I’m afraid I left them in the cabin—”

She had
already climbed over the bench by the time he finished speaking. “Let’s go see
to them at once,” she said. A moment later, they vanished back out into the
night.

“I think
Whyborne,” Griffin said, “we should have a nice leisurely dessert, don’t you?”

Griffin

We
lingered over slices of what was alleged to be pie, although in my experience pie
ordinarily had less dough and more filling. Scarrow took his leave, wishing us
both a pleasant evening and inviting us to services next Sunday should we be so
inclined.

I
considered suggesting a stop by the saloon, but I doubted Whyborne would care
for the atmosphere. Nor would he be particularly welcome at the card tables. He
had a knack for card games that bordered on the uncanny, which tended to lead
to accusations of cheating.

“I
imagine it’s been long enough for them to have become reacquainted, as it were,”
I said at last, checking my pocket watch. “Don’t you think?”

“I’d
rather not think of it at all,” Whyborne muttered.

I
chuckled. “Don’t be such a prude.”

“I’m
not,” he objected. “But Christine is like a sister to me. I wouldn’t wish to
think of it even if…” he waved a vague hand. Even if he possessed the slightest
interest in women, I took him to mean.

Many of
the men I’d had liaisons with in the past had been married, or planned to
marry. Glenn, who died horribly beneath Chicago, had a wife and five children.
I myself had slept with women, at first in an attempt to understand my own
feelings, and later as part of my various investigations. So when I’d first met
them, I’d rather feared Whyborne and Christine were lovers. It hadn’t prevented
me from pursuing him, but I assumed I’d be forced to share his affection. And
for the first time in my life, the thought pained me.

Iskander
had assumed the same, and God only knew how many of the museum staff. In
reality, I’d quickly discovered Whyborne was one of those men who lacked even
the slightest ability to appreciate a woman in such a fashion. He’d made no
attempt to please his family by courting a girl as a youth, or even tested the
truth of his proclivities in a brothel.

But
Whyborne knew himself in a way I could only envy. It hadn’t always made him
happy, but it gave him the courage to find his own path, despite the desires of
his father or anyone else. He refused to be anyone but himself, and the world
could go hang if it disapproved.

If not
for him, I might have married Ruth. Made Pa happy. Stood by Ma at Pa’s graveside,
my wife and children at my side, pretending it wasn’t all a horrible lie.

“Griffin?
Is everything all right?” he asked quietly.

I
blinked back to myself. “Yes. Sorry. Just lost in thought.”

He
nodded. “Come. Let’s walk back to the cabin. We’ll go slowly and knock
discreetly when we arrive.”

We
bundled back up in our mittens and scarves, tugging our parka hoods over our
heads. It was bitterly cold outside of course, and the smoke and flames from
the mineshafts gave the camp an ominous feel, like something from a story of
hell and devils. The Northern Lights blazed and pulsed above the mountains, and
I heard…

Something.
Like a voice speaking from another room, the volume increasing and decreasing
with the intensity of the lights.

“Do you
hear that?” I asked.

Whyborne
looked at me blankly. “Hear what?”

The
rippling light faded a bit from its apex, and the distant voice died with it.

“Nothing.
I must have imagined it.” I was tired after our long travel, and my mind was
surely playing tricks on me.

As we
made our way over the frozen ground by the combined light of the aurora and an
oil lamp, Whyborne said, “You can go to church if you want, you know. Just
because I don’t believe doesn’t mean I disapprove.”

Did he
think it the concern that had troubled me earlier? And perhaps, in a round
about way, he was right. “I know,” I said. “But how can I sit in a pew and have
faith that the man in the pulpit speaks for God, when most such men would
condemn us to eternal torment for loving one another?”

“Well,
yes,” Whyborne agreed hesitantly. We passed what appeared to be the local
brothel, no more than a wooden front with a canvas tent behind. “That would
rather be my question as well. But it isn’t the same for me. It probably wouldn’t
have been even if I’d regularly attended First Esoteric.”

“Probably,”
I agreed. Considering First Esoteric restricted its congregation to the old
families of Widdershins, their beliefs were rather likely of the sort to be
seen as blasphemous by the more orthodox denominations. I’d heard the Christmas
carols sung in Widdershins, after all.

Either
way, Whyborne had never had faith. Never believed in a benevolent providence
arranging our lives in ways that might seem incomprehensible, or even cruel,
but would ultimately be revealed to be a part of some divine plan from which
only goodness would spring.

“I’ve
heard of sympathetic clergy,” I went on. “Who marry men or women like
ourselves. Not in the church, of course, but in small private ceremonies. But
the fact they would immediately be stripped of their collars for doing so would
weigh on me, even if I found such a one in Widdershins. Not everyone is turned
against us, and yet…”

The
words stuck in my throat. I swallowed hard and forced them out. “Pa died
believing I’m bound for hell.”

Whyborne
sighed. The moisture in his breath turned to ice in the frigid air. “I
remember.”

Remembered
the last words Pa and I exchanged, he meant. When I’d tried to explain what
Ival meant to me, and Pa refused to listen. No doubt Pa had thought the same,
that I was the stubborn one who wouldn’t hear the voice of reason.

“Did
it…did it trouble you much?” Whyborne asked quietly. “Not your father; of
course that did. But…I assume you believed the same thing at one time.”

I still
remembered the feelings of shame and pain during the sermons when the parson
warned the sin of buggery would bring down the wrath of God on America. At
times the guilt felt overwhelming.

But that
was a long time ago, and life had put a great deal of distance between me and
that frightened, desperate boy. “Of course it did. At the time, I hated leaving
Kansas, being driven out by the very people I’d spent my life trying to please.
But in some ways it was the best thing that could have happened. In Chicago I
met many different people, men and women. Worldly people, who didn’t cling to
the narrow-minded beliefs I’d been raised with.”

“People
like Elliot.”

“Yes,” I
agreed, because Elliot had been an important part of my life. “And others. Good
men, good women, who made the world a better place. And I couldn’t…I couldn’t
believe any murderer or thief would be more acceptable in the eyes of God
simply because of whom they fell in love with. What sort of heavenly father
gives a woman to her rapist, but throws good men into hell for the crime of
love?”

“I had
the same questions,” Whyborne said dryly. “Though to be fair, I read the Bible
alongside the legends of the Greeks and Romans, with no particular weight given
to any of them. Although considering the head of one pantheon was the lover of
his cupbearer Ganymede, I will admit to a personal preference.”

“I
thought you a youthful devotee of Bacchus.” I gestured at the saloon as we
passed. “Here is your temple.”

“Don’t
forget Pan,” he added. “Although it was more for the freedom they represented
than anything else, I think. I was a bit too young at the time to understand
the lure of the satyrs.”

I shook
my head. “I can’t imagine it.” Our lives had been so different.

“I know.”
He stopped and turned to me. The green light of the aurora combined horribly
with the puce scarf about his neck, and picked out odd highlights from his dark
eyes. “Griffin, I’m sorry about your father. And I hope you’ve found family in
Jack, but please always remember—”

As if
Whyborne’s words summoned him, Jack’s voice sounded indistinctly on the cold
air.

We both
froze, although of course we weren’t doing anything wrong. Merely two friends
having a discussion.

“Listen
to me!” Jack shouted, the words muffled. A moment later, I realized they came
from the cabin behind the saloon. The freezing air carried sound far more
clearly than it would have otherwise.

Turner’s
voice came in reply. “No! You listen to me, Jack Hogue. You’ve been deceived.”

Whyborne
and I exchanged a glance. My years with the Pinkertons removed any shame I
might have harbored about eavesdropping, and I strained my ears to hear more.
But apparently they’d reined back their tempers, because only the slightest
sound of conversation followed, quickly dropping to nothing.

At least
I could now account for the voice I’d heard earlier. Just someone talking in a
distant cabin, and a trick of the wind and cold had brought the sound to my
ears and not Whyborne’s.

I began
to walk again, and Whyborne fell in beside me. “I wonder what that was about,”
he mused.

Likely
it was none of our business. I knew almost nothing about Nicholas Turner, or his
relationship with Jack. If Turner had any questions about our expedition, he
would have brought them to us. Still, I couldn’t help but worry. Who might have
deceived my brother—and how?

A woman,
perhaps. A sweetheart he’d left here, thinking she’d stay constant, who strayed
during his absence. Or some other small matter, a hired man or a gambler. I
couldn’t ask Jack about it directly without betraying my eavesdropping, but I
knew how to casually question a man without him even knowing he was being
interrogated. And if it proved to be something more serious, I’d offer my
support to him.

Pa might
have died thinking me a lost cause. But I’d stand by Jack if he needed me to. I’d
prove myself. And if he found out about Whyborne and me…

Well, it
didn’t matter. There was no reason to think he ever would.