“Order up.” The cook called from the window between the dining room and the kitchen.
“Probably yours.” Stella left us and went to pick up the plates of food steaming in the pass-through window.
The silence that settled between us unnerved me. Ben drank his coffee, stared out the window and watched as beat up trucks and ATVs drove past. In the summer, if you weren’t a hard core bar fly, you got up early. Got to the docks. Got out on the water before the weather could turn sour. The water tended to be calmer in the early morning.
“So, gold dredging,” Ben said. “Doesn’t seem like every little girl’s dream job. How’d you end up doing that kind of work?” He slowly stirred his coffee.
“My father, Buck. I moved up here when I was twelve.” I shrugged. Everyone in town knew my story. Wasn’t often anyone asked me about my past. “That’s what he did for a living. So his thing became my thing.”
He took another sip of coffee. “And your mom? What’s she do?”
My insides chilled. No one—no one—asked about my mother. “I’ve got no idea. She skipped out on me when I was a kid.”
“Oh.” Ben’s voice quieted. “That’s kind of a raw deal.”
“She wasn’t much of a mom.” My new employee didn’t need to know the sordid details of my sad childhood. I didn’t share much even with people who had known me for years. “I’m good with it.”
“But you’ve got a sister. Zoe?”
A beat up van drove past. Nome was starting to wake up.
“We’re not very close. She’s quite a bit older than me.”
He nodded. “So just you and your dad then?”
“Yep. The two of us against the world.”
“Sorry he’s not well.” His expression turned pensive. “I lost my grandfather not too long ago. He’d been sick a long time. Hurts to see someone you love in pain and not be able to fix it.”
I felt the tears welling up.
God, I didn’t want to look like a weak, blubbering baby in front of him. “He should be waking up any day. The doctor’s very hopeful.”
Stella handed our plates to us. “Be careful. They’re hot.” She placed silverware rolled in paper napkins next to each of our orders. “Anyone need ketchup, hot sauce…?”
Ben shook his head.
I took the opportunity to dab at my eyes.
I didn’t want to talk more about my life, my past, my father. I’d been doing my best to tread water in the whirlpool I’d found myself in. “So what’s with the scar?” I couldn’t help myself. Instead of asking something normal, I went for the biggest question in my head. “War wound?”
His gaze settled back on me. His eyes hollowed out, and his face paled ever so slightly.
His eyes begged me to take it back.
*
I was grateful Ben had his own vehicle to get to the docks. Spending more time with him in silence would have been difficult. I couldn’t believe what an idiot I had been in the cafe. I knew he was military. We were still at war with Afghanistan. I had no idea what he’d seen or done, what kinds of assignments he’d been given. If any of his buddies had been wounded or killed.
Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.
I rested my head on the steering wheel for a few minutes.
I knew what it was like to have secrets you didn’t want to share. Wounds you didn’t want to discuss. But yet I plunged right in without thinking to get the focus off of me. What a mistake. I hoped we could work together without awkwardness.
My phone blinged. I had a text from Stella.
Ben sure is cute.
Not really in the mood for girl talk I sent her back an emoticon—eye roll emoji:
??
We could discuss the finer points of my new diver’s attractiveness at a later date.
I’d paid the cafe tab out of the couple hundred in cash Kyle had traded me for a 1/4 ounce last night. Some of the gold I’d given him was in payment for helping me with the clean out, even though he hadn’t asked for compensation. Seemed the right thing to do. The rest I’d traded for whatever cash he could spare. The assayers office was only open daytime hours, and I intended to be on the water as late as possible today. Surely, there would be a day soon with bad weather or crap conditions for diving, and I could turn in all of my gold and get some money in the bank.
With a credit card payment coming up soon and rent due in a few days, I’d have to find some time to get my butt there. Luckily, the gas station in town knew my father and was willing to trade gas for gold. Probably didn’t get the best exchange rate, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
I followed Ben’s ATV to the docks. Fog hovered over the water. The air was still, the waves nonexistent. Another stellar day for dredging. Several boats had beaten us to the punch, but from where I stood I couldn’t tell if any were in our spot. The gold had been good yesterday. My dad had been right. Some untouched areas still remained in the public mining area with good gold—maybe even the mother lode he believed was out there. My father always had a knack for it. Better than any other dredger I knew.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Kyle passed along the news of my success to the new outfit he worked for. I’d forgotten to ask who’d taken him on. Maybe the Goldfinger, Jerry Sterling’s dredge. I’d heard they were short a diver. All Kyle had to do was point out my dredge on the water, and they could do the rest. I didn’t own a lease. I had no right to the discovery. Every man for himself out here.
Ben and I would need to move quickly to do some uninterrupted diving and set the boundaries. Dredging in the public areas could turn into a dangerous mad house if someone thought another dredger had found a good streak. Although the rules stipulated dredges must stay 75 feet away from each other, not everyone followed them—especially under water. However, establishing your own spot was part of the game.
I parked in the gravel. I half expected Nate to show up. My nerves were a bit on edge after yesterday morning’s strange encounter and my suspicions that he’d followed me last night to rattle me. But I shook it off. Nate was nowhere to be seen. Maybe he’d gotten over whatever it was that had set him off.
Ben retrieved the refilled gas cans from the back of my truck. It impressed me he thought to do it without my direction. He paid attention.
I grabbed the empty buckets.
“What’s this?” Ben looked under a tarp in my truck bed.
“A trommel and some other equipment.”
He nodded and dropped the tarp.
“I’m sorry.” I couldn’t hold it in anymore.
“What?”
“Back there. At the cafe.” I had a hard time meeting his gaze. “It was none of my business to ask about your scar.”
“I came to Nome to get away from bad memories, but I guess I’m finding out I can’t run away from them.” He put the strap of his duffel bag across his chest, full of diving gear. “It’s part of who I am.”
“A lot of people come to Alaska for some of the same reasons.”
We headed to the dock. I had the buckets, he hefted the gas cans.
“Makes sense,” Ben said. “On a map it looks so far away.”
“Nome ends up as a last stop for some.”
“Was it a last stop for you?” he asked quietly, as if he were testing the waters.
No one had ever asked me before about my decision to stay in Nome. “Of a sort.”
“Sounds like you’ve got your own memories you want to forget.”
“Doesn’t everyone?” I set down the buckets.
Ben put the gas cans next to the other ones on the deck. “I suppose so.”
Strangely, it felt as if we had worked together for years. Seamlessly, he joined my struggling operation and fit right in. I wasn’t particularly easy to get to know. I didn’t have many friends. Only God knew why Stella had stuck by me through thick and thin, fights and tears.
“Anyway, it was none of my business,” I said. “I won’t ask questions like that anymore. Promise.” For some reason I needed
more from Ben. A recognition that things were square, that I hadn’t set up a block between us. I’d pushed away enough people. I needed him until the season ended. I knew how it worked. Someone shrugged when really they harbored all kinds of ill feelings toward you that bubbled up to the surface at some point, and eventually bit you in the ass. Not this time.
“I’m over it. Really.”
“Ok.”
We loaded our gear. He checked fuel levels in the generator and dredge engine and sloshed gas into the open tank.
In the wheelhouse I put the three peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I’d made at Kyle’s place last night into the cooler along with a couple of sodas, a few water bottles and a six-pack of beer with three beers missing. I’d noticed yesterday Ben had dug around in the cooler looking for something else after we’d had a late lunch. Big guy like him probably needed a lot more fuel. He’d eaten every scrap of his mega omelet, and I’d noticed him eyeing my leftover pancake at the cafe.
Across from us, a few dredges motored into the bay. I wondered where were they headed and whether Kyle was on one of those boats. I turned on my GPS. The screen lit up, and the purple dot appeared that I’d set in the system last night. Slightly further south than where we’d started yesterday. We’d follow the trail of gold beneath the waves until it disappeared.
I’d been in charge of the GPS a few seasons after I’d moved to Nome. My father had showed me how it worked: how to find a location, set a point, store it in the memory, so the spot could be found again. That first summer the GPS and the lunch cooler had been my two tasks. I made the sandwiches, ensured they got into the cooler, filled it with enough drinks for everyone. Nate had tolerated me pretty well those first few years. I’d been a goofy kid who took over some of the more mundane jobs he hated. If my father had asked me to do something, I did it with rarely a complaint. Nate liked to order me around when my father was diving, as if I was a private in his own personal army. But I’d done what he’d asked.
I’d wanted nothing more than to be useful to Buck and his partner. I didn’t want him to send me back to Seattle. I couldn’t go back.
When Henry, my stepfather, had told me the truth—that my mother had run off again and wasn’t coming back—he’d had a perpetual hurt look on his face. Wrinkles in his brow. Worry weighing him down like gravity on Jupiter. The gravity there was three times the strength of gravity on earth. And that’s just what Henry had looked like—as if he were walking around on Jupiter. The weight of it dragging him down.
Zoe, my half-sister, had believed every word my stepfather had said. My mother was a tramp. She didn’t want a family. She’d run off to live free of us. Free of the chains of her children and her husband. She’d done it before, he said. Before I’d been born.
I grabbed a beer before I shut the cooler. It had been my father’s rule that no one drank while driving or tending. The beer was reserved as a reward for a job well done. For some reason, I wanted it. Six-fifteen in the morning, and I wanted a beer. Made zero sense, and I knew Buck would disapprove, but I didn’t care.
I snapped the top.
Ben looked at me from the foredeck.
I stared right at him as I took my first sip. I don’t know why. It was a defiant, childish thing to do. I was the boss. I should be modeling the behavior I wanted on board the dredge.
Ben turned back to his work.
Without Buck around, I was losing it. Had I ever been as confident as I believed? Had I ever been good at doing any of this dredging stuff? Or was it all made up crap by Buck? A surprise daddy who’d been blessed with a gap-toothed 12-year-old when her mother up and split. Maybe he’d felt sorry for me.
I set my beer next to the comms system and headed aft to start the motor. “Let’s get moving. The weather report didn’t sound too good for this afternoon.”
The motor roared to life. Ben finished filling up the equipment and tied the gas can to the others.
I steered us out of the dock area. My gaze focused on my competition. About five dredges had hit the water ahead of us. Most turned north toward a different open mining area. But I didn’t let it fool me for a minute. Kyle had seen my gold last night. Either he was the best ex on the earth and would keep it to himself, or he went blabbing. Gold secrets didn’t last long in Nome.
“I’ll dive first today.” I gathered my hair into a quick ponytail, the tie between my teeth. “You think you got it up here?”
Ben sat on the couch behind me. “Not that much to worry about.”
“Today might be different. If any of these other dredges get too close, let me know.” We hadn’t had anyone on our ass yesterday. But, then again, yesterday I was silly Rory, Buck’s kid, trying to run a dredge by myself. No surprise the competition didn’t see me as a threat. “And keep an eye on those clouds.” I pointed to the gray mass gathering on the horizon. “It could mean the wind’ll pick up some.”
I navigated toward the open water. I’d finished about half the beer. My stomach turned queasy. I slid open the plexiglass window opposite the doorway to the deck. The cool breeze made me shiver. I dumped the remaining contents of the can into the sea. I crunched it and tossed it into a bucket I used as a garbage can.
“Can you take over while I suit up?” I stepped away from the wheel.
“On it.” Ben checked our location on the GPS and steered us to the right spot.
I’d left my dive suit drying on the deck, the black neoprene cool to the touch. I stripped off the striped t-shirt and rolled up jeans I’d found at Kyle’s. My mind wandered back to last night. I thanked my lucky stars I hadn’t taken him up on his offer of sex. That would’ve been a major mistake.
He was a good guy. He really was. Not bad looking with his lanky, lean body and rock star hair. Physically, it had worked. We both had a love of dredging and diving, but that was pretty much all that we had in common. Our conversations revolved around our work life—diving stories, gold recovery numbers, discussions about new equipment and techniques, debates over the best way to keep one’s toes and fingers from freezing when doing ice diving. Our arguments were generally mild and not all that interesting. I suppose most people would be happy to have uninteresting arguments, but I guess I wished for something a little more challenging. Kyle gave up too easily.
After the accident, it had been surprisingly effortless to let go of him. I’d dumped all my fears and anger on him, his actions or inactions, and made that as a reason to leave. But I knew the relationship had been failing for some time. Like all of my relationships had in the past. I used the accident as an excuse to break it off in an obvious way that made sense to most.
Kyle thought we were back to our old games again. Where I’d sleep with him and stay over for a few nights and then go running back to my Dad’s place when I felt like it.
Not this time.
I looked out over the dark blue waters of the Bering Sea. I wanted to bury myself in mining, forget about all these problems, these confusing thoughts. Love, hate, fear twisted inside my head making me tired.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The gold streak lay before me like the Yellow Brick Road. I followed it for hours. Not really keeping track of time. My air line was clear, the heated water kept pumping to my suit, and I hadn’t gotten a jam in the hose all day. Great dredging. Yesterday’s haul had been pretty good. Today’s should be even better. I didn’t know how long the gold would last, how long I’d have before it ended.
I added up my debts in my head. Buck’s flight to Anchorage had totaled thousands of dollars. Shocking, to say the least.
I hadn’t been prepared to handle it.
The phone call to Henry had been mostly about processing the cost and figuring out what to do. Instead, it became a conversation about loans and money and was just plain horrible. Henry had been too practical to talk me down out of an emotional flare up. He was a brass tacks person. Facts ruled. Decisions were based on weighing the options, carefully considering the outcomes, choosing the best path.
> I’d just wanted to get Buck on a plane to the hospital so he wouldn’t die.
Needless to say, Henry and I had clashed on the phone. I’d hung up. In desperation, I had dug into my father’s glove compartment and had found his ‘emergency’ credit card with a $6,000 limit. If this didn’t constitute an emergency, I don’t know what did. We also had another card with some room on it and $2,000 in the bank: Our profits from the summer dredge season so far after rent, food, and some debts had been paid off.
Buck had looked so pale and helpless when he’d been loaded on the plane. The heart attack had nearly killed him. They’d shocked him back to life at the clinic in Nome, pumped him full of drugs, and then urged me to get him to Anchorage as soon as it could be arranged.
Now I not only faced a huge credit card debt with mega interest, but the hospital had called me about Buck’s medical insurance: limited. With a high deductible plan, he had to come up with $25,000 before his insurance would cover anything. For now, the debt was racking up, but the bill would come eventually, and I’d have to be prepared. The whole event would equal a year’s worth of earnings.
Zoe had suggested I sell the Alaska Darling to cover the debt. It was the one asset Buck owned that had some value. Dredging equipment was not cheap, and in Nome, new miners were eager to invest in a get-rich-quick opportunity. They showed up every summer with big dreams and typically went home poorer than when they arrived. Dredging was not for the faint of heart or the inexperienced.
But the Alaska Darling was my legacy. The one thing Buck had been proud of, besides his daughter, and the one thing he’d never let go of, no matter how bleak our financial picture had been over the years. There’d been hard times before when his usually good instincts didn’t pan out, but Buck had never considered selling his dredge. Not once.
I lifted rocks and guided my hose under them. I sucked up the sand, gold and gravel underneath. The work was routine after six years of diving. A diver got a feel for what good ground looked like, and this was good ground. The right mix of cobble and larger rock. But letting my mind wander too much could be dangerous.
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