The Wildflowers at the Edge of the World

by Shaylin Gandhi

  Sophia felt a pang of sympathy as Annie deflated even further. How a red-blooded man might ignore the Flower of the North in order to pet a dog was anyone’s guess.

  With a morose sigh, Annie tipped a larger-than-usual whiskey dose into her coffee and sifted through the newspaper.

  “Anything good?” Sophia asked, trying to distract her friend. And herself. Two days had passed since they’d robbed Henry, and while it seemed he hadn’t gone to the Mounties, the silence still made her nervous.

  Annie tossed back half her coffee in one gulp. “Here’s one about you and me. Page three.”

  Sophia leaned in. “Really? What’s it say?”

  With a dramatic throat-clearing, Annie recited. “Two women created a stir on Sunday of last week, when, shortly after church services, they appeared in the aisle, heavily armed. Shocked bystanders reported that the women carried illicit revolvers and, in a scandalous fashion rarely witnessed outside the dance halls, went so far as to expose their thighs in full view of the public.”

  Sophia gave a half-smile. “Hey, now. That could’ve been anybody.”

  Annie scoffed. “By the time the Mounted Police arrived, the women had fled, and no arrests were made. However, a miner later interviewed by the Nugget identified one culprit as none other than the Flower of the North, the soiled dove widely considered to be the second-most beautiful woman in Caribou Crossing…” At that, she tossed the paper aside, eyes flaring. “Second-most! Who in Sam hell wrote this trash?”

  “Arthur Thomas,” Palmer offered. “I read that article this morning.”

  “Well, he ain’t never seen me naked, so what would he know? Arthur Thomas. Bah. Pa always said you can’t trust nobody with two first names. Guess he was right.”

  A laugh threatened. Sophia hurriedly swallowed her coffee to keep from spitting it out.

  Annie turned a suspicious eye. “And what is so damn funny this morning, if I might ask?”

  “Um. Nothing. I’m just as appalled as you are by this grossly negligent reporting.”

  Annie’s lips pressed flat. “That so?”

  Sophia schooled her expression to a careful blank. “But…who do you suppose the first-most beautiful woman is?”

  “Flora Sanchez!” Annie threw up her hands. “Of course it’s Flora. Makes me real sore to say so, but Arthur’s probably right, the old, whiskey-soaked bastard.”

  Flora. The name tickled a memory. Sophia searched back, grasping toward that first conversation she’d had with Irene. “The girl who sold herself?”

  “For twelve thousand dollars, if you can believe it. Auctioned herself off, right in this here room.”

  Sophia blinked. So she’d heard. But that had sounded impossible, just part of Irene’s sales pitch. “Is that even legal?”

  “You really gotta ask? Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but here at the Blossom, we pride ourselves on our law-abiding natures. Real shining examples of virtue, we are.”

  “Right. So the Mounties turned a blind eye?”

  Annie shrugged. “Flora was always everybody’s favorite, even with the police. Went around whispering Spanish in their ears, calling everyone chilito. That made ‘em feel real man-like, I guess. Don’t think they ever figured out it wasn’t no compliment.”

  “Chilito? What’s that mean?”

  Annie waggled her pinky finger, her star-blue eyes glinting. “Means their guns ain’t as long as them ones you’re toting around.” Then she snickered.

  Sophia’s heart lightened. It was the first time she’d seen Annie smile in days. And maybe… “What if we staged an auction of our own?”

  Annie quieted while Temperance swung her head up. Palmer never turned, too busy stacking glasses.

  Sophia spun her coffee cup in place. “We could sell ourselves, like Flora did. Not for a whole season. Maybe just for a week. It might earn us enough to pay the Reverend.”

  Annie shuddered. “Ugh. I ain’t going nowhere near that. Lord knows I don’t care to belong to nobody. Not even for a few days.”

  “It’d be a sacrifice, but…” Sophia trailed off, hearing herself.

  Her lips snapped shut. Who was she to ask them to martyr themselves? Gray had already offered a way out—a permanent one. All she had to do was marry the thieving charlatan.

  “Naw.” Annie drained her coffee, then refilled the mug with straight whiskey. “We gotta hit Gray where it hurts. We know what he’s up to now, using his church tithes to salt claims and pawn ‘em off for a fortune. We just gotta prove it.”

  Sophia nodded. Striking back sounded even better. “How?”

  Annie lapsed into silence, clearly at a loss.

  “We could start at the Mining Recorder’s office.” Temperance stood up. “See how many claims Gray’s sold, to who, and for how much. Maybe the men he’s crossed will be interested in helping us.”

  Well, then. Impressed, Sophia raised her coffee in salute while Palmer cleared empty mugs. “That’s a fantastic idea.”

  Temperance nodded. “I’ll go now, before we open.” The steps creaked as she headed upstairs to change. When she came down again, she laid a small tin on the bar. Almost shyly, she said, “For you.”

  Surprised, Sophia pried off the lid to find a thick white ointment. The prickly scent of spice wafted up. “What’s this?”

  “Devil’s club salve. For muscle pain. I bought it at the supply store this morning.”

  Sophia stared down. After rescuing Temperance, she’d done her best to hide the injury in her back, hadn’t wanted to burden anyone with such petty complaints. “How’d you know?”

  A faint smile lifted the corner of Temperance’s mouth. “Honey. I watch. And I wanted to do something for you. Though it’s not nearly enough, I know.”

  Sophia blinked against the sudden constriction in her throat. “No, it’s…I, um…thank you.”

  Temperance just flashed a smile, then turned to Annie. “Would you like to join me, honey?”

  Annie cast a sidelong glance at Palmer, but he didn’t even notice. She sighed loudly. “Guess I would.”

  After they left, Sophia sniffed at the tin. For several minutes, she contemplated saying something to the Professor—you know any man in this town would kill to be you, right?—but in the end, she decided against it. Best not to pry without Annie’s permission.

  So she thanked Palmer for the coffee and went for the front door. After all, she’d spent far too much time gazing at the ceiling lately.

  A few hours outside would do her good.

  ***

  The salve brought immense relief. Sophia strolled down the wooden boardwalk, marveling at how quickly her backache dimmed to a twinge. Even when she criss-crossed the muddy streets, stamping her rubber gumboots through the muck, the pain remained quiet.

  Giddy over her rejuvenation, she wandered Caribou Crossing with no real destination. Around her, men milled everywhere: before the false-fronted buildings, up on the hillsides, down by the river. Most drifted aimlessly. Lured by the newspapers’ promises, they’d arrived with hefty dreams and light pockets, and now had no idea what to do next.

  Sophia smiled ruefully. Her own idea of the North had matched theirs, in the beginning. Back in San Francisco, the papers had touted Caribou Crossing as the Paris of the North, where gold spilled from the ground. One only had to get there.

  She wrinkled her nose. Paris, indeed.

  Where in Paris, she wondered, did dirty tents stretch along the river in endless rows? Where in Paris did the air ripen with the pungent miasma of rotting garbage? Where did men wander in idle masses, having arrived too late to stake claims of their own?

  Still, it wasn’t all bad. A raw magic permeated Caribou Crossing, too. Alongside the wood smoke, hungry optimism hung in the air, and in the shops, gold spilled from men’s pockets and pokes. Among them, Sophia roamed uncorseted, her trousers stuffed into her gumboots, her hair falling freely. Not one man scolded her. Some even tipped their hats.

  Where in Paris might she do such
a thing? And where in Paris did the sun sleep overhead at midnight? Where did the landscape rise toward icy, fanged mountains that stole one’s breath at a glance?

  Where in Paris did the sky invent a new color each day?

  She smiled. She’d been right to come. Despite the Reverend, despite Irene, despite everything…some part of her gladdened when she surveyed all that squalor, smack in the middle of the splendorous Yukon.

  Some part of her belonged.

  ***

  Sophia first saw the holster on Front Street. It hung in a shop window, an incongruous footnote to an overflowing display of impractical satin negligees. Still, the strappy vest caught her eye from across the street.

  She stepped off the boardwalk and into the mire, circumventing a pack of dogs snarling over a fallen heel of bread. Clambering onto the opposite boardwalk, she rested her fingertips against the glass.

  The holster crooned to her through the window. Even half-hidden behind a spray of satin and lace, its craftsmanship still showed. Tooled straps gleamed against silver buckles, the leather as dark and lustrous as mink.

  Sophia had never seen anything so beautiful. But the price tag detonated her daydreams. Eighty dollars. A small fortune.

  A wistful sigh escaped as she turned away.

  Immediately, her boots froze to the boards as scarlet flashed in the crowd. Corporal O’Cahill approached, stern-faced and austere in his pressed uniform. A broad-chested giant in Mountie regalia accompanied him—the Superintendent, no doubt. Both men strode against the streaming current of bedraggled miners, secure in their expectation that the throngs would part as they passed.

  Sophia slanted her face away. She wasn’t sure why—with her guns back at the Blossom, she had no reason to hide. But O’Cahill’s expression gave her pause.

  On the surface, he looked the same—the rigid posture, the serious mouth, those strange, sad eyes, far too blue. Beneath that, though, anger pulsed. The ropy muscles of his neck stood out in taut lines and he angled his body away from his massive companion, as if trying to escape an odious stench.

  He’s furious.

  Curiosity flared as she hunched against the shop window. She strained to separate the Mounties’ conversation from the cacophony of shouting miners and half-wild dogs.

  “…there’s more to it than that,” the Corporal said. “I’m believing it to be connected.”

  The overgrown Superintendent laughed, though the sound rang false and condescending. “O’Cahill, old boy, you’re like a dog with a bone.”

  “I’m only trying to uphold the law. As should we all.”

  “And we are, man, we are. What’s this connection of yours, again?”

  The Corporal’s boots punished the boards. “After the outlaw’s second attack, I went back. Tracked the prints up the creek, I did. They ended at a claim, Eighteen above Mayhem.”

  Unease slid down Sophia’s neck like an ice chip. If the Corporal had followed their trail back to Henry’s stake…

  The Superintendent laughed again. “Mayhem? Mayhem’s worthless.”

  “Is it, now?”

  “Ask anyone. Except these goddamn American greenhorns. Why they insist on becoming miners without first learning how to mine, I couldn’t tell you.”

  The Corporal made a noncommittal sound. Sophia stole another peek. He stopped, his spit-shined boots bizarrely formal against the beaten-down boards of the sidewalk. The Superintendent halted, too, but scanned the crowd, fidgeting. He stood so close she heard the nasal whistle of his breath.

  “Sir,” O’Cahill began.

  Sophia’s skin crawled. She wasn’t sure precisely which claim they’d robbed Henry on, but Eighteen above Mayhem sounded about right. The Corporal had to be talking about her.

  “The tracks converged at the river, just as the ladies claimed.”

  The giant guffawed. “They’re whores, old boy. Not ladies. And you’re welcome to extract information from them by whatever means necessary, if that’s what you’re after.”

  “They’re citizens,” O’Cahill said, anger vibrating in his voice. “The law protects them. Just the same as it protects you and me.”

  “What, have they gotten in your head already? Here’s a bit of advice. Bed them, pay them, do what you must. But forget them, afterward. Basic strategy, my friend.”

  The Corporal stiffened. “I’ve never in my life purchased the company of a woman. Sir.”

  “Yes, yes, Corporal. No doubt you’re a fine, upstanding example for us all to follow. Now, what’s your purpose? I have an appointment.”

  To Sophia, the Corporal’s stillness tasted ominous, like the sulfurous tang that permeated the air before a lightning strike. But the Superintendent just gazed ahead, scanning the crowd in impatience.

  “My point, sir, is the tracks converged twice. Once at the river, and again at Eighteen above Mayhem. Yet the ladies’ story didn’t match the tale the tracks told. And the Mining Recorder lists George Carmichael as the owner of the stake they visited. I’ll be reminding you, George is a known associate of the Reverend Gray.”

  The big Mountie abandoned all pretenses of amusement. “So you’re saying George Carmichael is the man in the mask? Or are you accusing the Reverend himself?”

  “I’m only suggesting the ladies’ story is less than truthful, and there’s reason to look deeper.”

  “They’re whores, Corporal. Of course they’re less than truthful. Now, I won’t remind you again that Reverend Gray is a respected addition to our community. He isn’t to be embroiled in your never-ending suspicions.”

  The Corporal stood ramrod-straight, a pillar of silent anger. Behind his back, his fingers balled into fists. “You’re not finding it the least bit disturbing, sir, that three women have lied to an officer of the law? They said they were only out for a ride, but they’d been up on that claim, so they had. And I believe the truth is connected to the Reverend somehow.”

  Bitter hollowness enveloped Sophia, as if a giant hand had reached in and scooped out her insides. How stupid they’d been to lie to O’Cahill. He’d warned her not to, once.

  She should have listened.

  “What I find disturbing, Corporal, is your dogged obsession with these scarlet women. Arrest them. Beat them, for all I care. Do what you must, as long as you also bring me the meddling lackwit who robbed the Northwest Trading Company. Meanwhile, you leave Reverend Gray alone. That’s an order. Am I understood?”

  O’Cahill’s clenching fingers stilled. “Understood. Sir.”

  The enormous Superintendent stormed off. O’Cahill stayed behind, glaring out into the boggy street. The air gathered around him, a seething pocket of hushed fury passing miners seemed to know to avoid.

  “I see you there,” he said.

  Sophia jerked away, anchoring her gaze to the shop’s rippled window. Would he arrest her now? Force her to confess?

  Heavy footsteps approached. The boards hummed beneath her, encouraging her to run.

  But she held her ground, and when she looked up, the Corporal held his Stetson. One hand scrubbed at his sable hair, sending it leaping in every direction. His eyes—arctic-blue and bizarre—betrayed a hardness that shocked her.

  “Tell me,” he said.

  She made up her mind, then, to be truthful, come what may. “When you found us by the river, Temperance and I had followed Henry Burnham. We’d ridden out to—”

  The Corporal waved a gloved hand. “Not that. I know that already.”

  “I don’t think you do.”

  His jaw worked. “I do. You staged a robbery. You were meaning to steal your money back from Henry, except the outlaw showed up and made off with the gold, instead. Or that’s how you intended it to look, since the outlaw was none other than Miss Annie Marigold.”

  A bolt of surprise pinned Sophia to the sidewalk. “How…?”

  “I found three sets of hoofprints, not four. All three of you ladies rode, which meant one of you was the outlaw. I even went back, later, and found some bloodi
ed trousers in the bushes. Besides, Miss Annie…” A pitiless light flared in his eyes.

  “Miss Annie…what?”

  “Is a horrendous liar. Just…terrible.”

  Surveying him, Sophia wondered if she’d ever seen a man look so unforgiving. Whatever kinship she’d felt with him that day in the Blossom’s kitchen seemed like something she’d imagined in another life. But… “If you know what we did, why didn’t you tell your Superintendent?”

  “I’ll be asking the questions, Miss Sophia.”

  “Okay.”

  “Tell me,” he repeated.

  “Tell you what?”

  “Are you a good woman?”

  She frowned. What did that have to do with anything? “Um. No.”

  His brows knitted.

  “I’m a whore. And I’m selfish. I’m rude to people all the time, and I hate wearing corsets.”

  O’Cahill blinked, rapid-fire. “Very well. And Miss Temperance? Is she a good woman?”

  What on Earth was he after? She weighed her answer carefully, intent on offering him the truth. “Look, I don’t like most people. They’re cruel, and selfish, and willing to hurt each other, and—”

  “Miss Sophia, I’m not—”

  “No, let me finish. I don’t like most people, because they only think about themselves. They’ll step on whoever they have to in order to get ahead in this world. But Temperance…she’s not like most people. She’s selfless, and giving, and fiercely kind. She always does what she believes is right, even if it’s hard. She’s…” Sophia trailed off, searching for the proper words.

  “Yes?” O’Cahill’s gaze drilled into her.

  “Her heart is pure.”

  He laughed without a trace of mirth. “A pure-hearted woman of the demimonde?”

  “You say that like it’s impossible.”

  “It should be.”

  When his scrutiny became unbearable, she fastened her gaze on the holster vest in the window. Her breath misted the glass. “You know, everything you just said to your Superintendent, about us being ladies and the law protecting us equally…you sounded like you believed that.”